Chapter Text
People say grief gets easier. That you move on, that time softens the edges.
That’s a lie.
You just get better at pretending it doesn’t hurt anymore.
People say grief gets easier. That you move on, that time softens the edges.
That’s a lie.
You just get better at pretending it doesn’t hurt anymore.
The snare drum in my hands feels heavier than usual. I stare at the music sheet, but none of the notes stick. My sticks are tapping in rhythm—muscle memory—but my head’s somewhere else.
"Gwen?"
MJ's voice cuts through the static. I glance up. She's watching me with that familiar concerned smile. Not pushy, not loud. Just… patient. She always is, on this day.
“Yeah,” I say quickly. “Just… zoned out.”
MJ doesn’t press. She just nods and cues the band to restart.
The music starts again. I play along. But I’m not really here.
Because five years ago today, I buried my best friend. And every beat I play just echoes that silence.
MJ steps up to the mic, her ruby-red guitar slung over her shoulder like it’s part of her spine. Her voice is casual, confident, a little teasing. She strums a warm-up chord, tossing a glance at the rest of us.
"Alright, take it from the bridge. Gwen, count us in when you're ready."
She's cool like that. Always is. Even on today.
Me? I’m sitting behind my kit, shoulders hunched, sticks clutched like they might break—or maybe I might. My snare drum stares up at me like it’s waiting for answers I don’t have. Everyone else is tuning or adjusting. I’m just… zoning out.
This day always sucks. I should’ve stayed home. Or gone swinging. Or both.
God, get it together, I tell myself.
I raise the sticks, take a breath, count off—
"One, two, thr—!"
My left stick launches out of my hand like a projectile from an indie punk trebuchet and nails someone directly in the shin.
Thwack.
There’s a stunned silence.
Then a voice:
“Ow. Uh… was that supposed to be part of the beat?”
I look up—and instantly regret everything I’ve ever done.
Harry Osborn, standing there with his bass and a raised eyebrow, rubbing his leg. Yes, that Harry. The mayor’s son. Mr. Surprisingly-Down-to-Earth-And-Annoyingly-Good-At-Bass. He’s wearing one of those slightly-too-nice sweaters that make it look like he got lost on the way to a yacht party.
And I just assaulted him with a drumstick.
My mouth moves but words betray me. Instead, I do the only logical thing: turn away from everyone and stare very intensely at my hi-hats like they’ve personally offended me.
“Gwen, you okay?” Harry asks, voice soft but laced with concern.
I nod. Too fast. “Yeah. Totally fine. Just, uh… ghost in the system. Or something.”
I can feel the heat rising up my neck. Kill me now.
MJ gently sets her guitar down and makes her way over, crouching beside me with that worried-big-sister look she gets when I start glitching emotionally. Her hand rests lightly on my arm.
“You sure? We can take five if you want.”
I want to say no, to pretend everything's cool. To just suck it up and drum through the ache.
But my throat is tight and my brain is full of static.
Today isn't just another day.
It never is.
I manage a shrug. “Might be good.”
MJ nods. No lecture. Just space.
The others scatter, chatting about coffee or amps or that weird new teacher with the unibrow. Me? I sit there in silence, staring at the floor, the drumstick still rolling in a sad circle by Harry’s foot.
Five years.
And I still don’t know how to move on.
Honestly?
I’d rather be on the receiving end of one of Fisk’s lectures right now.
Yeah. The whole grim monologue, cigar smoke, and probably a pair of brass knuckles with my name on them.
Because at least then I wouldn’t have to look Pete’s best friend in the face.
Dammit.
Why did that thought hit so hard?
Ugh.
It’s been five years.
Five years since Peter died.
Since the lizard thing. Since I failed him.
Harry seems… fine. Better than me, anyway. Maybe because he wasn’t the one holding Peter’s body while the sirens got closer. He didn’t feel Peter’s breath hitch and stop. He wasn’t the one who ran.
And MJ?
She was dating Peter.
And she still shows up to practice, still sings her lungs out like the world didn’t fall apart. Still laughs. Still functions.
How?
How does she manage to act like everything’s fine when everything isn’t?
I’m still trying to remember how to breathe without it hurting.
“Gwen.” MJ’s voice cuts through the noise in my head like a tuning fork. “Take a break. Get some air, yeah?”
I nod and stumble up from my drum stool a little too fast. Harry flinches like I might launch another stick at him. Fair.
“Sorry,” I mutter, avoiding all eye contact like a total coward.
“Still better than last week,” MJ jokes, trying to lighten the mood. “That time you nailed the amp and nearly set off the sprinklers.”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “Progress.”
I grab my hoodie from the corner and head for the side door. The air outside hits cold and damp—New York in the fall—and I gulp it down like it might wash away the knot of guilt strangling my ribs.
I can’t go home. Not yet.
Dad would ask questions.
I can’t go to the cemetery either. Not today.
So I do what I always do when I can’t stand being in my own skin—
I suit up.
I send MJ a half-baked text:
“Tell Harry I bailed. Had to grab something for my dad.”
Not exactly a lie. But not true either.
The drums from practice still echo in my skull, like I never left. But my hands won’t stop shaking. I need to move. Swing. Something.
Then—
ZZZT
The big digital billboard above Times Square glitches out with a familiar static-screech. And just like that, I know exactly how my night’s about to get worse.
Screwball.
Again.
The screen flickers to her grinning face—neon goggles, glitter-painted cheeks, and a selfie ring light so blinding I can see it from five blocks away.
“Hellooooo, New York Ciiity!” she practically sings, her voice sharp enough to spike through my earbuds even without turning them on. “I’ve got a very special stream today—ghostly edition!”
My mask’s lenses narrow into a squint.
Here it comes…
“Tonight’s challenge goes out directly to you, Ghost-Spider! Find me before the countdown ends... or a bunch of innocent New Yorkers find out the hard way that I really don’t bluff!”
The screen splits into nine glitchy livestream boxes, each one showing a different blurry street cam. One of them definitely has a red blinking light taped under a mailbox.
Fantastic.
I mutter under my breath, "Screwball, I swear—one of these days I'm tossing you in a dumpster full of expired glitter glue."
She must hear me.
Or she just knows me too well.
“Oh, and just to keep things fun,” she adds, winking into the lens, “I may or may not be wearing an Oscorp prototype drone harness right now. So, uh… good luck catching me!”
The feed cuts out. The billboard resumes its usual ads. Something about toothpaste.
I rub my temple through the fabric of my mask.
This was supposed to be my distraction. My peace.
Just swing a few laps around the skyline. Let the wind in my hair and pretend the drums in my chest are just music.
But now?
I’ve got glitter bombs, a livestreaming psycho, and a potential Oscorp connection to chase down.
“Great,” I sigh. “Thanks for the coping mechanism, universe.”
I shoot a webline and launch into the sky, praying Screwball’s ego gets her caught fast—
Because I really, really don’t have it in me to be a people person right now.
The city blurs past in streaks of headlights and neon as I swing low through Midtown. Not even a full sixty seconds later, I spot the first “bomb”—which turns out to be a glittery lunchbox duct-taped to a mailbox, blinking like it’s trying to get picked up by a UFO.
Classy.
I land on the side of the box, pry it open with a sigh, and fish out what looks like a modified party popper rigged with C4-lite.
Of course she made it pink.
Of course.
With a grunt, I yank the whole thing free and fire a webline straight up to a water tower. The bomb whips through the air and sticks with a thwump. I layer on three more webs for good measure. That should contain the blast if it goes off—Peter B. showed me the trick. Said it’s how he handled a pumpkin bomb on a date once. Romantic.
Then my wrist buzzes.
The scanner I, uh, “borrowed” from Dad and modded into my suit crackles to life with static and a clipped voice:
“Bomb squad deployed. Units en route.”
Good.
I’ve got backup.
I’ve also got an influencer in a flight harness doing crime for likes.
I mutter to myself, “Y’know, I always figured the internet would kill me eventually. Just didn’t think it’d be literally.”
Another billboard blinks on nearby. Screwball’s face again, this time with a badly animated emoji filter and confetti overlay. She’s mid-dab.
It hurts.
“Ghost-Spider! One down, eight to go! Better pick up the pace or your fan rating’s gonna tank!”
She winks. “And hey—maybe smile for the camera this time? You look like you just crawled out of a Hot Topic fire sale.”
I roll my eyes so hard I nearly pull something.
“Yeah? Well you look like a discount streamer whose whole personality is sponsored by energy drinks and trauma.”
I swing away before she can respond, aiming for the next flashing light on the HUD in my mask. I’ve got this. I’ve dealt with Screwball before. She's more irritating than dangerous—like a mosquito with a vlog.
And honestly? A bit of mindless web-slinging and threat neutralizing might be exactly what I need right now. No thinking. Just moving.
The kind of autopilot Peter used to talk about when he didn’t want to deal with…
…well.
Everything.
The second bomb is near a skate park. Some kid nearly kicks it mid-trick. I web it up fast and lob it to a safe rooftop. The adrenaline helps. Clears the fog. Makes me feel something other than useless.
But somewhere between bomb three and four, I hear it.
A crash. A real one. Not Screwball’s fireworks and party tricks.
Steel twisting. Glass shattering. Tires skidding on wet pavement.
And just like that, all the dumb glitter bombs fade into static.
Something real just happened.
I pivot mid-swing, heart clawing its way up my throat.
This isn’t one of her games. It’s not on the tracker. It’s not part of the feed.
Before I can even scan the skyline—
“Did you like that one?”
Her voice.
Right next to me.
Screwball hovers beside me in that neon-lit flight harness, spinning lazily in the air like she’s just asked if I liked her playlist.
I yank my swing short and slam down hard on a nearby rooftop.
“You set real bombs?!” I scream, and before I realize what I’m doing, I lunge.
We crash to the rooftop in a tangle of limbs, her stupid neon goggles askew. I hit harder than I meant to. Again.
She squirms out of her harness with a startled yelp and stumbles back, hands up like I’ve drawn a weapon.
I don’t even think—I flick my wrist and web her mid-step, dragging her back. Too hard.
She stumbles right into my fist.
Her phone, mounted GoPro-style to her vest, flies off and skitters over the edge. I hear the crack as it hits pavement.
She doesn’t scramble to retrieve it. Doesn’t scream at me.
She curls in on herself. Small. Shaking.
Arms over her head like—like this isn’t the first time someone’s made her flinch.
My stomach sinks.
I just stand there, mask filtering my heavy breaths into shallow hisses.
“…I—I’m sorry,” I say softly. It sounds stupid, hollow, pathetic.
I step forward, hands slightly out. She flinches so hard she nearly goes over the edge of the roof.
Nope.
I shoot a web and pin her feet to the gravel before she can get any closer to the drop. It’s instinct. Panic. Guilt. All wrapped up in a shaky trigger finger.
She whimpers again. Doesn’t speak.
I don’t know what I’m doing, just that my fingers move before I can stop them.
I reach down and slowly undo the clasps of her helmet. I lift it off.
Blood’s running from a split in her lip. Her cheeks are blotchy and wet. Her eyes?
Not a villain’s.
Just a girl. My age. Maybe a year older.
My mask HUD runs facial recognition on reflex.
Allan, Elizabeth.
Former Midtown High.
Ward of the state for two years.
Police report: domestic abuse. Alcoholic parent. Multiple ER visits.
Juvenile record sealed.
The search bar at the bottom of the feed mocks me:
"People also ask: What happened to Liz Allan?"
I swallow back bile.
I didn’t just deck a chaos-loving streamer. I just punched a trauma survivor trying to feel seen for once.
The pink glitter. The constant feed. The pranks.
It wasn’t a brand. It was a shield.
“Oh my god…”
I kneel beside her, slow and careful, like I’m trying not to scare a bird. “Liz… I didn’t know. I didn’t mean—”
She looks at me through a black eye, glassy and silent.
“Do you… wanna sit up?” I ask, voice cracking.
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink.
And suddenly, I feel more useless than I did in that band room an hour ago.
I should’ve walked away. Should’ve asked questions first.
Should’ve been Peter.
Instead, I’m just the girl who can punch through steel and still manage to hurt people in all the wrong ways.
Then, from the ground, in the quietest voice I’ve ever heard from her:
“I’m sorry… I-I was threatened into planting real bombs…”
My heart stops mid-beat.
That…
That wasn’t part of the game.
Her voice is trembling. Her whole body is, actually. Shoulders tight, eyes wide and swimming.
She’s not twitchy or obnoxious or livestreaming anymore.
She’s just Liz.
My fingers tremble as I pull off a glove. Not for dramatic effect. Not for style.
Just to make me feel real to her. To me.
I reach into my emergency pack—aka the beat-up fanny pack I’ve stitched into my belt—and pull out a crumpled wad of McDonald’s napkins.
They’re speckled with grease stains and lint, but it’s all I have.
I kneel down and hold them out gently. “Here… for your face.”
She takes them like they’re made of glass. Her hands are shaking. So are mine.
“Can you do me a favor, Liz?” I ask, my voice a whisper.
She looks up at me like I’m about to vanish. Her eyes are wide, scared, confused. She nods.
“If I take my mask off…”
I pause.
“If I take it off, will you tell anyone who I am?”
She doesn’t speak. Just shakes her head, slow and deliberate.
I suck in a breath and peel it back. First the hood. Then the mask.
My hair falls out in wild, sweaty tangles. I forgot I didn’t braid it today. Typical.
The cold air hits my face, and suddenly I feel naked. Not in a literal way—just in the way that matters.
Liz stares. Her breath catches.
“G-Gwen?” she stutters.
Like she’s seen a ghost.
And honestly? I feel like one.
I try to smile. “Hey.”
She wipes her nose on the napkins and blinks at me like she still can’t believe it. “You’re… in band. With MJ.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Drums. I miss a lot of practice, but… I’m technically still in.”
A weak chuckle slips out of her. She presses the napkins to her lip and looks away, like the weight of the moment’s still sitting on her ribs. “I didn’t know what else to do. He said if I didn’t make it look real, he’d hurt my little brother…”
And now my lungs hurt too.
“I believe you,” I say, scooting a little closer. “You’re not the first person someone’s used to scare the city. But you might be the first who also threw glitter bombs from a drone.”
That gets a small, tired smirk. “Glitter's cheaper than therapy.”
“Relatable,” I murmur. Then add, after a beat: “Minus the drones.”
We sit like that for a moment—quiet, still, the city buzzing below like it’s moving a thousand miles away from this rooftop.
The silence stretches. My lungs ache from holding it all in.
So I finally ask.
“…Who threatened you?”
She hesitates. Her mouth opens like she’s going to lie. But then she just deflates—shoulders slumping, eyes soft and glassy.
“Wilson Fisk,” she whispers.
I swear the name punches the air out of my chest.
“I-I… I had to borrow money from him,” she continues, voice cracking. “I needed to help my mom. Rent, meds… I thought I could pay him back with the stream. But then—he started showing up.”
My hands clench. I stare down at the rooftop. Screwball’s glitter bomb antics suddenly feel like the saddest kind of cry for help.
I nod slowly, then without a word, I stand up, grab her helmet, and hurl it off the side of the building. It clatters down a fire escape, scraping metal all the way to the street.
Liz flinches.
“Listen to me,” I say, tugging my glove back on. “When the cops show up, tell them everything. That Fisk’s using you. Don’t sugarcoat it.”
“They won’t believe me,” she mumbles, eyes low.
I crouch down, fish around in my side pouch, and pull out a worn, slightly cracked phone. I scroll to a blank contact screen, type in a number, and hand it to her.
“Then ask for your one phone call,” I say. “And call me.”
She stares. “Why would you—?”
“Because,” I interrupt, managing a crooked little smile. “Chemistry buddies for life… even if you dropped out halfway through the exploding-flask unit.”
She actually laughs. Barely. But it’s real.
“I’ll talk to my dad. He’s a cop, and he’s... not exactly a Fisk fan.”
“You sure?”
I shrug. “I’m sure he’ll listen to me.”
She wipes her nose again with one of the now thoroughly destroyed napkins. “Thanks, Gwen.”
“Just don’t livestream this part. My secret identity doesn’t need a Twitch debut.”
She salutes me weakly with two fingers. “No views, scout’s honor.”
I turn, firing a webline toward the skyline, but I hesitate just long enough to glance back.
“You’re not bad, Liz. You’re just… misguided a little. Like the rest of us.”
I swing into the air and let the wind drown out the guilt caught in my throat.
But guilt’s a clingy little parasite—it doesn't care how fast you move or how many rooftops you clear. It’s patient. It waits until you’re tired and alone, and then it shows you exactly what you don’t want to remember.
Like now.
I was ten again.
No mask. No powers. Just me, in a backyard that smelled like chalk and cut grass. Liz was talking a mile a minute, waving a stick around like it was a microphone. Peter sat cross-legged in the grass with a library book twice the size of his head. And me? I was swinging away on a toy drum kit that rattled more than it played.
“I’m gonna be a YouTuber!” Liz had grinned, all teeth and glitter glue.
I remember snorting so hard I choked on my juice box. “You mean, like, famous-famous?”
She nodded like it was obvious. “But the cool kind of famous. Not like those weird old singers my mom listens to.”
Peter looked up, pushed his glasses up his nose, and blinked at both of us like we were speaking alien.
That made Liz laugh harder. I followed right after.
And that moment—just that—felt perfect.
Present-me almost laughs again, but it catches in my chest.
Because that was the last time we were all together before things started unraveling.
Before Uncle Ben.
Before Peter changed.
Before I did.
Before Liz dropped out.
Before I stopped laughing like that.
The kind of laugh that made your ribs ache. That kind of laugh doesn’t happen much anymore.
I land on a rooftop and crouch there, arms slung over my knees, mask cool against my skin.
Peter, you would’ve known what to say to Liz.
You would’ve asked before swinging.
But I’m not Peter.
I’m Gwen.
And I screw up.
Even with the best of intentions.