Archive of Our Own ^beta

Gwen wasn’t expecting to show the band her song today. Or ever, really. She didn’t want them to know that she stayed up all night working with an old guitar and a tired old drum set, trying to piece things together because she couldn’t go to sleep without finishing the song. She didn’t want anyone to find out her feelings towards this boy made her sleepless at nights, and creative outlet only taking away some of the obsession, but leaving her with the bittersweet feeling in her chest.

So having MJ read her words aloud to the rest of the band makes her want to stab a knife to her chest and hope that the world shatters so she can jump down and disappear. Alas, the Stacy Luck prevails. Nothing goes her way, so she has to sit down and listen, trying to not give too much of her emotions away when her face is burning. Lucky her, she’s at least good at that.

MJ looks at her with a side eye. “When did you write this?”

“It’s been a while,” Gwen mutters. There’s no way she’s letting anyone know she spent an entire night on it.

She tosses the notebook to Betty, “I don’t know what to tell you Gwen, this is good,” she shakes her head, “Why haven’t you shown this before? You knew we needed new material.”

Gwen shrugs, she can feel a slight panic taking over her body, “I don’t know, it’s just, not our usual stuff, y’know?”

She hopes that’s enough.

Betty clacks her tongue, “Pretty boy,” she reads. “Who is this pretty boy anyways?” MJ leans over her shoulder, taking another look at the notebook and then looking back at Gwen. Gwen releases a nervous laugh meeting their gazes.

“She has a point, you know,” MJ says slowly. “Gwen Stacy of all people writing a love song. You haven’t even been talking to boys since- well, you know.”

“Peter,” Gwen says. “You know you can say his name. It’s not like it’s a forbidden word or anything.” But she can’t help it, because her voice shakes slightly just before she stops speaking. She notices the girls exchange looks, but she doesn’t say anything.

“Yeah, well, who’s the mystery boy?” MJ asks.

“No one, it’s just, I’m trying new things. Fresh breath of air to our music, right?” Gwen chuckles, she pushes a strand of her hair behind her ear, mostly avoiding everyone else’s gaze. No one? she thinks. Miles Morales isn’t no one. He’s everything, he’s the sunflowers in an open field, the cold breeze in a summer night, the warmth of a familiar hug, the butterflies fluttering in her chest; happiness so close and yet so far away. She keeps him close to her chest, what they have- what she wishes they have is hers and hers alone, how can she even tell other people about it? She knows she hasn’t been too subtle about it, Hobie keeps teasing her after all. But she’s not ready to share these new set of feelings with the world herself yet.

“Yeah,” she hears Betty say, “sure.”

Gwen Stacy’s favorite pass time activity as of late is swinging by a dimensional portal and roaming through the streets of a new New York. She has come to find out that there are a few good locations, New Yorks, but she always finds herself back in Earth-1610 New York. For the past few months they all have been stopping by each other’s dimensions for general spidey helps, hang outs and celebrations. It felt good to have people who knew and understood the burden she’s been carrying, people who have gone through it themselves. So the infamous spider-gang had become a support system for each other, both for work related things and their personal lives. She was grateful to have them around, and even more grateful that she can use her dimensional watch to visit people even more often now. Having Miguel finally off her back was such a relief.

But a part of her still feels guilty about everything. So she swings by 1610 every week, trying to make it right; helping Miles with the villain of the weeks, giving him a hand with errands, sometimes even helping with assignments. It’s not entirely a one sided thing, Miles does all those things for her as well, but she’s not sure she deserves the help after everything. She’s just grateful that he still spends time with her.

She taps on the window, waits a few seconds and slowly slides it upwards and makes her way into the dorm room. She slides in trying not to block Gankee’s view from the PlayStation ahead of him that he’s so focused on. She settles on Miles’ chair, rolls around in the room for a while and then finally turns towards the bed.

“Hey Gankee.”

Gankee shakes his head towards her, keeping his eyes on the console, “Sup Gwen?”

“You know, same old. A few punches here and there, getting my ass kicked, jumping up and down,” she fiddles with the chair’s arms a bit, not paying too much attention to what she’s doing.

She sighs, a lot more louder than she’s wanted to and she sulks in the chair after seeing the knowing smirk in Gankee’s face.

“Don’t,” she says softly. Gankee shrugs, “I’m not saying anything.”

Gwen buries her face in her palms and lets out a groan, “I know I’m pathetic.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You were thinking it.”

Gankee sighs, pausing the game and putting the controller away. “I wasn’t thinking anything, Gwen.” Gwen ignores him for a second, still fiddling with the chair, and then slowly looks at him back again, “So I’m guessing he’s not here?”

Gankee shakes his head as a no, “He got into trouble with the security for sneaking out the other night, he’s trying to figure that out in the main hall.”

“And that would mean..?”

Gankee checks his clock, “About another hour.”

Gwen groans and throws herself onto Miles’ desk. “Great,” she mumbles. She lets herself lay on the desk for a while, eventually looking at her suit, and then Gankee.

“Do you mind if I change? Too long in this thing gets uncomfortable.” She hears Gankee sigh, and then get off the bed, “I was gonna get snacks anyways.”

She sends a thankful smile on his way and lays on her back as he leaves the room. It took her a long time to accept that leaving clothes at Miles’ room for emergencies wasn’t such a weird thing. It’s not like she had another place she could just stock stuff for visiting this world. Still, she’s not fully used to it. Going through Miles’ wardrobe to find the bag she hid in the corner feels so weird, almost like she’s doing something illegal. It’s an old, used sports bag. Miles once told her that he did basketball as a kid, and that seemed like a good idea for a bunch of girl’s clothes disguise in case there was an emergency or the school decided to search through the dorm rooms. The last thing she wanted was to put Miles in a situation that’s hard to explain, risky and uncomfortable.

So she searches through the clothes to pick out a comfortable pair of pants and a sweater. She looks at herself in the mirror for a while, fixes her hair and fiddles with her clothes and sighs. She doesn’t even know why she’s trying, she knows that Miles moved on. Plus, he’s seen her at her worst, so what’s looking cute now gonna do anyways? It’s stupid, she knows it, yet she can’t resist the urge. She throws a soft kick to the bag of clothes and falls back on Miles’ chair, closing her eyes.

“Gwen?”

She  wakes up to the familiar voice, looking around for a second and seeing Miles standing in front of her in his uniform.

“Oh. Miles. Hi,” she stands up quickly, “Sorry. I just- I was a bit early. And Gankee was here so-“

“Sup?” Gankee says from his bed, and Gwen realizes she hasn’t even heard him coming. Stupid spider-senses.

“-so… I don’t know. I thought I could wait for you here,” a shy but nervous smile curls up on her lips. And to her relief, Miles smiles.

“It’s fine, you’re welcome here, you know that. I just didn’t realize I lost track of time that much, so I was a bit surprised seeing you here, that’s all.”

“Okay,” Gwen says, nodding. “So, you needed help with the surprise party?”

“Yeah,” Miles says as he hangs his backpack on his bunk, “the others are supposed to be here soon enough as well. We can meet them in the roof.”

The others, she thinks.

She knew he asked for the entire gang’s help, it still stung a bit. She shouldn’t be jealous really, but she can’t help it.

“Sure, right. We should get going. I’ll… be outside, let you change.”

So she takes the excuse and goes outside to wait for Miles. After he comes out looking as stylish as ever, they make their way towards Miles’ house. Their mission requires great effort and team work, Jeff doing the hardest part of it: Keeping Rio away from home so they can set up her surprise party.

The next few hours go quickly in a blur. Errands are run, cakes picked up, party decorations put up, arguing with the DJ, getting all of the guests together. Gwen’s swinging by to grab the cakes as she’s had experience with her own dad, Pavitr arranging flower decorations around, Hobie doing god knows what with the food he brought and Miles running around trying to make sure everything is just as it’s supposed to be.

She carefully drops the cake on the table, next to Hobie’s amazing food array. The first time Hobie offered to cook, they were a bit nervous. None of them really liked British food, but it turns out just like his hatred towards anything British, Hobie also didn’t enjoy it. So his repertoire was filled with food from all around the world instead. After that one dinner night, nobody else was allowed to make any food, that was Hobie’s art. He winks at her, and she smiles back. She’ll forever be grateful for what Hobie did for her on her time of need.

Once Rio arrives, it really feels like everything they did pays off. She can feel the vibrant colors dancing around them, good music flowing through, people enjoying the food, and most importantly, she can see how happy both Miles and Rio are. She watches him dance with his mom from her spot next to the table, and she feels her heart aching, beating faster, begging to be the one he’s dancing with. He moves smoothly, elegantly. She always assumed she was the dancer among the group, but even from afar it’s not hard to see that he’s a natural at it.

Pretty boy, I wanna see you dance, she thinks. She didn’t think the view would be this mesmerizing when she wrote those lyrics on her notebook. Nonetheless, here she is, and there he is. He’s dancing, in his element, and she gets to see it.

She feels Hobie’s shoulder touch hers and looks away from Miles.

“Come on Gwendy,” he gives her a little shove, “it’s a party.” She’s about to object, and then she sees Miles coming their way.

“Hobie,” he says excitedly, “my mom loves the food.”

Hobie smirks and nods to him, “Good moves mate. And I thought Gwendy here was the only dancer.”

Miles shrugs at his comment. “I know a few things, my mom wanted to make sure I could handle myself in the dance floor ever since I was a kid,” he takes a glance at Gwen, smiling, “but I’m nowhere near as good as you, obviously.”

Gwen looks at them both, “I mean- it’s not really my style really-“

“We’ll see that, yeah?” Hobie points to Miles, “You two go out there, and I’ll decide who’s doing how.”

Before she can say anything, Miles shrugs, takes Gwen by the hand and she finds herself going to the dance floor with him. The world stops around her, she holds her breath for a second. And then, everything starts flowing, moving and changing and for most of the time, she doesn’t even realize what’s happening. She lets him take the lead, because that’s all she can do with the tides in her chest constantly rising.

She doesn’t remember when the dancing ends and the talking begins, she doesn’t remember the food or how she got back to her world, her room.  As embarrassing as it is for her, all she knows is that she left her everything on that dance floor.

So its 3 AM once again, and she’s staring at the ceiling laying on her back, with her pencil and notebook in her hands, writing everything out so she can function again.

'Cause baby when we touch
It's like the whole world stops.

And I wish I knew what it is you do
What you do to me.

Gwen’s not proud of the amount of songs she wrote about Miles. She’s even less proud of knowing that she’s definitely gonna write more. What she’s not sure of is how to feel about the band loving them. One momentary decision trapped her in the position she is, and she has no one to blame for that but herself.

The girls love her lyrics, and she’s come to realize that it’s a good way to get her obsession out of her system. When they’re actually playing her songs about Miles, it gives her a weird sense of comfort. A purpose, something to do with her feelings besides shutting them inside her head.

So there she is, sitting on her drum set and trying her very best to not correct MJ on how some parts are supposed to make you feel. She’s used to her songs being out there by now, but she still feels weird about sharing how deeply she feels about them.

Let’s be more than this now, she hears MJ sing. She gets lost in her drumming.

More than this.

More than friends.

More than playing pretend that everything’s the same.

More than another web to call for.

Because nothing compares to a quiet evening alone, MJ sings. And Gwen knows she doesn’t know the true meaning behind that.

Out of the suits, out of the masks. Just two people, showing each other who they are.

She wants nothing more than that.

But it’s kind of her fault, isn’t it? She can’t drop the mask, not really.

The girls need to tell her to stop, that they’re done with the song for her to stop drumming.

“That’s my drummer,” the sound echoes from the other side of the now quiet gym. She turns to see in surprise, but she doesn’t actually need to. She knows exactly who that accent-heavy voice belongs to.

“Hobie?” she asks, confused. He’s leaning on the door with that familiar smug look on his face.

“Thought I’d drop by. Copper said you’d be here. Fire piece, by the way,” he nods, it’s approving.

“You talked to my dad?” she asks, still confused.

“Not the first time, innit?”

“Sorry,” MJ interrupts, giving him a once-over, “your drummer?”

“Damn right she is,” Hobie says, coming next to Gwen, putting an arm around her shoulder casually.

“Hobie,” she whispers, “you’re really giving the wrong impression here.”

“She’s drumming right here,” MJ says firmly, pointing to her equipment, “With a big drum set that has The Mary Janes written all over it.”

Hobie points to her, “She doesn’t believe in consistency.”

Gwen facepalms.

She sighs, getting herself rid of Hobie’s arm, “Hobie, the Mary Janes. Guys, Hobie. He’s a friend.” MJ nods with a weird expression on her face. Gwen knows her enough to see that it’s both being irritated by Hobie, and also kind of being intrigued. She can’t blame her, Hobie isn’t the kind of guy you meet every day.

She shakes her head, “Why are you here anyway?”

“Just thought I’d swing by,” he winks, not so subtly at all, “Dinner night’s cancelled. Pav and Gayatri’s 1 year.”

And there goes her weekly free excuse to see Miles. She takes a second to register it before asking, “Couldn’t have you just texted me that?” looking back at the band, who pretend to pack their equipment but are definitely eavesdropping on them.

“I could, but I like the place. Got to hear your song didn’t I?”

She feels her blood rush to her face, “What makes you think I wrote-“

“Gwendy,” Hobie says, firm. “I’ve dealt with your bullshit for months. I know Miles when I see Miles. Or hear, in this case.”

 Suddenly, the other girls seem much more interested in the conversation. They exchange looks, not subtly.

Gwen wants to die right there, right then.

“That’s another time’s topic though. What I’m thinkin’ is, you, me, Miles. We go to the movies.”

“Movies? I-“

“Nu-uh. No objections, already told Miles,” he checks his watch, turns around waves his arm at Gwen, “gotta run now. 7 o’clock. Don’t be late.”

And just like that, he’s out, leaving 3 very impressed and one extremely defeated girl behind him. Gwen runs her hand through her hair, a bit dumbfounded, a bit annoyed, and most importantly, stressed about the unexpected change of plans. For a second, she doesn’t realize that all the other girls are staring at her.

“Where,” MJ starts, “have you been hiding him?”

“Hiding? I wasn’t hiding Hobie. He’s just… not from around here.”

“Yeah, that was obvious. Gorgeous boy with a British accent. Didn’t really think he was from Queens or something.”

Gwen shrugs.

“No offense Gwen, but it’s kind of… weird finding out you have other friends. You don’t talk to anyone, you barely ‘talk’ and now a gorgeous guy shows up, talking all dinner and movies and anniversaries. If I didn’t know you better I’d start to think you were hiding a secret life from us.”

“I have friends,” Gwen objects, “they’re just not from town. It never really came up either, I’m not hiding anyone-“

“So you’re inviting them to the gig on 28^th?” MJ interrupts her.

Gwen blinks.

“Inviting Hobie? To the gig?”

“And a bunch of other people you’re apparently hanging out with.”

It takes 5 minutes of more talking for Gwen to accept defeat, second time today, and to agree that she’ll invite her friends to the next gig they have. She has no intention of doing so, but saying yes to MJ is the only thing that gets her to shut up most of the time.

She leaves the gym, chewing on her lower lip, trying to get her thoughts together. She’s used to friday night dinners. They’re familiar. They’re safe. And most of the time, she has enough of a heads up to mentally prepare herself for any other sort of meet up outside the suits. Spidey duty doesn’t bother her. It’s second nature, and it distracts herself from everything that happens around and inside her head.

She likes being around Miles.

She doesn’t like how much effort it takes to be normal around him.

As soon as she opens the door to her room, she crashes face first into her bed with a tired groan.

“Gwen? Are you okay?”

She turns her head towards the door to be greeted by her father, with a slightly concerned look on his face. Now that he knows she’s Spider-Woman, he has a habit of jumping to conclusions on Gwen’s wellbeing, and she has to convince him every time that no, she’s not hurt. Physically.

“Yeah, dad. I’m just tired. Band practice.”

“Okay honey,” he says with a relief in his voice. George Stacy hasn’t always been the best father but he tries. He’s been trying more ever since their big fight and Gwen appreciates him for it. She loves her dad, but sometimes they’re just miles apart. Her dad taps on the door frame, looks at his watch and smiles at Gwen, “You don’t wanna be late to dinner, I’ll let you get ready.”

She thinks of telling him that there’s no dinner tonight, and that maybe they can catch up and even have some food together. It would be a good excuse to shove in Hobie’s face, spending time with her dad, mending broken relationships. She almost does it.

But she has to face the coward in her. So she gets up and drags herself to her wardrobe to get ready.

She’s at Hobie’s place at 7 o’clock exactly. 

Hobie gestures her to come in, “No one told you on time is late?”

“Hey,” Miles says from the couch he’s half sitting half laying on. Hobie points to him, “And early is on time.” Gwen furrows her brows, “You’re always late to things.”

“Sticking it to the man.”

She looks at Miles and he shrugs like he’s saying don’t ask me.

“So,” she says, “lead the way.”

“As you wish Gwendy,” he starts fiddling with his watch, putting in coordinates.

“Wait, what are you doing?” Miles asks getting up from his seat, trying to see Hobie’s watch.

“You didn’t actually think we were gonna see it here, did you? The movies here are bollocks. We,” he points to Gwen, “are going to your place.”

Just as he says that the portal opens, and he pushes the other two inside.

Gwen is still baffled when she’s picking up everyone’s snacks. Hobie’s been doing his best to throw her off the curve the entire day. So she said she’d go get snacks for everyone while Hobie and Miles try to sort out the tickets, get away and have a moment to process all the surprises Hobie threw her way.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she says as she sees Miles lined up in the slasher marathon ticket booth.

“Hobie picked it,” he shrugs. Just as he says that Gwen sees Hobie walking towards them with his hands in his pockets, looking suspiciously unsuspicious.

“But this thing ends at 8 in the morning.”

“A well-deserved break, eh?” Hobie says with a smug smile. Gwen shakes her head and looks at the line ahead of them, filled with all kinds of people. It’s not that she doesn’t like slasher movies, on the contrary, she’s a fan of them. What she’s worried about is leaving the city all by itself until 8 in the morning, and being stuck there with Miles doesn’t help the case at all. But again, Hobie isn’t entirely wrong: even if Gwen finds it hard to tell herself, they do deserve breaks every now and then. She tells herself it’ll be fine while a familiar tune fills her ears in the background. It takes her until Hobie starts eyeing her up and down after taking his snacks to realize what’s playing.

“Is that—” she blurts out, “no. Why is that—How is this playing here?”

…feels like I'm gonna D-I-E whenever you get close to me… she hears MJ’s familiar voice speak her words, horrified.

Hobie grins, “Gotta support the local artist, right? I tipped the manager.”

“You did not—Hobie—Why?”

“What are you guys talking about?” Miles interrupts.

“This, my friend,” Hobie puts his arm around Miles’ shoulder, “is our one and only Gwendy in action,” he says as he points to the speakers.

Miles looks confused for a second, and then his eyes widen with a shocked but also impressed smile growing on his lips. “No way,” he mutters.

“Hobie,” Gwen groans, giving him a side eye.

“Why’d I never heard of you play before?”

“Yeah, Gwendy, why didn’t he ever hear you play before?” Hobie pats on Miles’ shoulder.

“I don’t know- we’re not that good- there never was a reason to.”

“No, no, no, no. No excuses. I wanna hear more of your music now.”

And the answers clash inside Gwen’s chest. Because there he is looking at her with his big beautiful brown eyes, hair she wants to run her fingers through and the always supportive smile on his lips; she wants to say Yes. Please listen to me play, but be kind with me. This is all I am in my core, my heart and soul, and you’re every part of it. But then again, she wants to say No, you cannot listen to my music. It’s sacred, it’s a safe haven because this is all I am in my core, my heart and soul, and you’re every part of it, and if you knew, then I don’t know how I could handle it.

The answers clash, but the feeling is still the same. Words don’t leave her mouth until she finds herself saying “We’re gonna be late for the movie.”

Once they enter the theater, Gwen things it would be best if she put distance between herself and Miles since this is gonna be a 12 hour movie marathon, and she doesn’t want to do anything stupid late into the night. Just as she makes her way to the farthest right seat they booked, Hobie jumps down from the aisle above grinning, and says “Shotgun.”

She tries not to make it too obvious that she’s upset, but she scoffs anyways. It makes Hobie’s grin even bigger. She settles right next to Hobie with Miles following her close behind to sit next to her.

15 minutes into the movie, Hobie gets up saying he needs to take a leak. He’s greeted with objections from the two, saying the movie had just started and he could’ve gone before they went in.

“That’s better. If it’s just started, I won’t miss anything.” He hops his way out of the theater, and for a second Gwen feels the awkwardness of them now being just Miles and her in the darkness.

She tries to focus on the movie instead of the warmth she feels whenever Miles’ arm accidentally touches hers, and she tries not to overthink whether she’s taking up his space and if he’s uncomfortable of the occasional arm touching. She’s glad she’s seen these movies before, because she really can’t pay attention in between looking back and forth at her arm and its position next to Miles’.

She eventually finds her rhythm, and as the movie gets closer to its 30 minute mark, she feels just a bit more comfortable with how her arm moves once  she makes sure Miles isn’t uncomfortable in any way. But as the fate goes, that’s when the obligatory slashing of any slasher movie really begins. Even if he hadn’t really shown his colors doing the opening sequence, Gwen quickly realizes Miles isn’t a slasher person at all. Because with every sudden movement on screen Miles’ fingers find their way to hers, intertwined, squeezed, held and with every motion she can feel how tense his body is. But he sits through it.

And with every movement on screen, Gwen’s body fills with adrenaline. Slash. Cut. Scream. Touch. His fingers. Her hand. Locked. Brushing. Squeezing. Intertwined.

And with that, the movies she know so well enough to not feel scared anymore turn into hours of anticipation and excitement and fear.

So when there’s finally a break, Gwen feels grateful she can get out and breathe in some fresh night air. She checks her backpack for a small sized walkie-talkie she keeps around to see if the city is quiet. An excuse to get out of here would’ve been appreciated considering how she can feel every bit of blood running through her veins, all of her senses heightened with the adrenaline of having a crush. To her luck, all the super villains are taking the day off.

She hears footsteps behind her and Miles exhales as he approaches her.

“That was…”

“You’re not a slasher person, huh?”

“Definitely not,” Miles laughs.

Gwen keeps walking around, doing circles while Miles follows her.

“So why’d you let Hobie talk you into a slasher marathon of all things?”

“Well, a new experience, right?” he joins her in her circles, putting one foot right in front of the other, trying to keep his balance. “Speaking of, where is Hobie?”

Gwen pauses for a second, “He bailed on us.”

She continues with her little game of balance trying to seem nonchalant about Hobie’s set up. “You know, it was his idea. You’re not a slasher fan and I’ve already seen these movies. We can just call it a night if you want,” she looks at him with a subtle side eye for his reaction.

“No, no,” he says quickly, “we already paid for it. I won’t die over a few hours of fake blood.”

Gwen nods, and goes into an old routine out of habit. When she turns  around, she sees Miles trying to imitate her moves.

“You could do ballet,” she says with a smile. A shy expression settles on Miles’ face as he stops.

She chuckles, and her eyes can't help but wander to his lips and she feels like she's drowning. Right now, Gwen Stacy knows the canon is nothing but a web of lies created by the twisted mind of a grieving man, but what about the Gwen Stacy at night? What about the scared little girl that comes out every night? She keeps whispering in her ear, day and night. She can't have it all.

Are you willing to risk it all? she whispers. To give your life away for a boy? Gwen Stacy: always cursed, and always will be. Doomed to fall in love, destined to die.

She turns around, facing away from him.

“You could teach me,” he mutters.

She pretends not to hear him, and instead checks the time.

“We’re gonna be late for the next one,” she exclaims, “only if you want to go though.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go back inside.”

The next few hours are relatively better. Because this time, Gwen has excuse to hold his hand. “Get ready,” she whispers to him as she holds his hand and squeezes it to let him now there’ll be blood coming. He still flinches when it hits, but he leans towards her to whisper a sweet “Thank you.”

When everything gets into a rhythm, Gwen feels liberated. They laugh, get grossed out, tense, and they do it all together. She gets to hold hands with the boy she loves not because of a life threatening danger, but because they’re having fun together.

And maybe it’s just because he gets easily scared.

Or maybe it’s just because they’re friends.

But it still feels the same.

The night grows longer with each passing movie, and the exhaustion of the day starts to grow on Gwen. She battles with her eyes closing for a while, sitting up a bit straighter so she can stay awake. Her eyes move towards Miles from time to time, who looks calm enough but it’s obvious the night is starting to wear on him too.

“Miles..?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I’m just gonna…” she grabs on to his arm and makes herself a place on his shoulder for herself instinctively, dozing off as soon as she shuts her eyes.

Miles Morales looks at the girl he’s been dreaming of for years now, sleeping on his shoulder in a dark theater.

He had imagined that before, many times, but he never could imagine how it would actually make him feel like.

He slowly grabs her pinky with is own, watching her face to make sure he doesn’t wake her up. She wrinkles her nose with the commotion, moves around a bit only to settle even more comfortably on the boy.

He smiles and looks back at the screen. Suddenly, it gets less interesting.

He slouches down in his seat a bit, closing his eyes. And when his head eventually leans on hers, he doesn’t make an attempt to stop it.

And as annoyed as she is with Hobie, Gwen’s also smiling when they emerge from the theater at 8 in the morning, chuckling and shoving each other aside. No matter what they’re doing, Miles always manages to make her smile. Their hands and shoulders brush each other as they walk into the lobby.

She’s smiling, her heart fluttering, birds chirping around her, and it all fades away with one word:

“Stacy?”

She stops and closes her eyes for a second. She knows the dumb jock this voice belongs to all too well, and as expected, Flash Thompson is standing right behind her and Miles when she turns around. The blonde boy is smiling with his arm wrapped around the shoulders of none other than Mary-Jane Watson, looking at Gwen with a sly smile.

“Hey girlie,” she says.

“MJ. Flash. Hi. What are you guys doing here?”

“Same as you. The aftermath of a 12 hour long date night,” she winks at her after eyeing Miles up and down for an uncomfortable while.

“Oh no, we’re not-“

“We’re not on a date,” Miles finishes her sentence for her. Raising an eyebrow at Gwen after glancing at the young couple.

“Oh,” MJ says, “you must be one of Gwen’s other friends, then. Like that gorgeous, gorgeous guy. What was his name again?”

Miles glances between the two until Gwen groans “Hobie.”

“Right,” MJ says. Taking one more look at Miles, only to turn to Gwen and mouth the words pretty boy.

“You know Miles was just going home-“ MJ grabs Miles’ arm as Gwen tries to pull him away from her friend, “Miles then, alright. You know what you should do? You should definitely come to the show. I’m pretty sure Gwen’s already invited you. Right, Gwen?”

“Show?” Miles asks turning to Gwen, curious.

And right now, Gwen would rather take on an army of multi-dimension travelling Green Goblins by herself rather than be present here.

But she’s fighting a bigger foe: The Matchmaker.

So she sucks it up, barely nods, “Yeah. I was- I was gonna tell you about it, you know.”

“Uh-uh.”

“I was- It’s-“ she looks at MJ who’s mouthing the words twenty-eight, “It’s on the 28^th. You know it’s a small local gig. I didn’t really think you’d be that interested.”

“Are you kidding? Gwen! Of course I’ll come around.”

“Don’t forget to bring friends,” MJ adds with a smile.

“Well I’ll be there,” Flash Thompson says, taking his arm away from MJ to reveal his the Mary-Janes shirt under his jacket.

“Okay, well, good to see you guys! But we gotta go.”

Miles tries to wave back to MJ and Flash as Gwen pulls him away in a hurry.

“So,” Miles gives her a kind shove, “am I still invited, or was that just to make your friend shut up?”

Gwen pauses for a second, her eyes wander through Miles’, “Yeah,” she says with a subtle smile, “you’re invited.”

“Great!”

“Just… don’t make a big deal out of it.”

“I promise,” says Miles Morales with the smile that made her fall for him in the first place.

“I think I’m gonna throw up.”

“Dude, chill. You’re not playing live for the first time.”

“No,” Gwen snaps, “but you, made me invite people I actually know this time!”

“Please,” Betty says, “half of the Visions always show up to our gigs. You know almost everyone that has ever come to our shows.”

“Well these are my friends whose opinions I care about this time,” she groans. She sees Gloria raise an eyebrow at her.

“Wow, Stacy. That was low.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

MJ  clacks her tongue, grinning. Gwen doesn’t need her spider sense to tell her to know this is gonna be bad.

“He’s here,” she says.

Multi-dimensional Goblin army, Gwen thinks.

“Who?”

“The boy she’s been writing about for weeks.”

I could take on the Goblin army, Gwen thinks.

MJ circles Gwen, extending her arm to her.

“Miles,” she says.

MJ would be easier to take on than the Goblin army, Gwen thinks.

“Okay!” she snaps, “Yeah. Miles is here. Miles is my friend, and I don’t want to embarrass myself in front of my friends.”

The girls exchange looks and once more and Gwen thinks this should be the time a super-villain crashes her party.

But obviously, no one would do that the day 6 spider-people are around. That would just be too easy.

So she has to go on stage.

Her heart is racing, but she’s a drummer. She’s learned to find comfort in the rhythm. That’s how she handles her fights too, and she could approach this gig like a fight if it meant she would walk away triumphed.

She sees him in the crowd, very close to the stage, surrounded by their friends. He gives her a thumbs up and a supportive smile, and she can barely shoot a smile back.

He chuckles when someone screams “I love you Gwen!” from the crowd, and she blushes so hard she has to hide behind her drum set.

Thankfully, MJ’s appearance with flying kisses all around the room takes most of the heat off her.

Gwen Stacy is a good drummer.

We’re-close-to-getting-a-record-label-good drummer.

She’s a fighter.

She’s done this dance before.

The only difference is, she poured her heart out for this one, and the object of her affection is standing right in front of her.

She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.

She starts drumming.

She doesn’t hear most of the songs while playing, she hears enough to go off by and it’s good enough for her. Playing these has been second nature to her by this point.

Mostly, the set is a fever dream. She occasionally catches Miles’ gaze and hides from it immediately after. She hears her cue to slow down a bit and follows the orders.

“We’re coming to our nights end, so I’d like to introduce my friends!” MJ yells. The crowd cheers, and Gwen can’t help but smile.

“On the keys,” she turns around, “the gorgeous Glory Grant!” Gwen sees Glory take a step forward and do a greet with a satisfied smirk on her face.

“Give it up for the Bass Master herself, Betty Brant!” Betty does a 360 around herself, bowing to the crowd filled with friends, family, and some really cool strangers.

“On vocal and guitar,” she bows, “yours truly, Em Jay Watson.”

Gwen gives her drums a little bit more flavour, finally stopping to give MJ room to speak.

“And on the drums and lyrics,” she turns to Gwen and then back at the audience, “pouring her heart out the entire night is the one and the only Gwendolyn Stacy everyone!”

And oh god.

Oh no.

Because she sees the look on Miles’ face change.

Because she gave too much away.

Because now they know it’s about him.

“This next one is called All I Wanted, and it’s gonna be our last piece for the night. Thank you for coming everyone!”

Gwen can’t move for a second, frozen in her place once MJ starts playing the intro to the song.

Possibly the one with the most amount of emotion she put in.

She’s lucky the drums don’t come in for a while, because she’s able to wear off the shock and catch up with the song.

…I think I’ll pace my apartment a few times….

…And fall asleep on the couch…

She closes her eyes.

Gwen doesn’t really do vocals, but these are her words. So when she starts backing her up in the chorus, MJ looks at her with a surprised but a pleasant look.

“All I wanted was you.”

She sees him moving around with the side of her eye, she looks the other way into the crowd.

…I could follow you to the beginning…

…Just to relive the start…

And then maybe they could start over-

Maybe she could be different.

…And maybe then we'd remember to slow down…

And maybe I wouldn’t have betrayed you, she thinks.

Maybe I wouldn’t have broken us.

Throw what we had away.

All the guilt, love and shame she had while writing this song, all those emotions she goes through every time she looks at Miles boiled inside her chest.

And finally, Gwen Stacy breaks.

What better place to do it than a rock concert, right?

So when she starts screaming her heart out, MJ let’s her.

ALL I WANTED WAS YOU.

I did it all for you, she wants to say.

She can’t.

She doesn’t.

So she screams.

ALL I WANTED WAS YOU.

ALL I WANTED WAS YOU.

ALL I WANTED WAS YOU.

“That was All I Wanted from our latest album, Words I Can’t Say, out now on whatever platform you use! We are the Mary Janes, thank you for coming!”

The first thing Gwen does after getting off stage is throwing up.

The girls object and someone fetches her a towel. Gwen looks at MJ with a side eye while still leaning over the trash bucket she’s holding, “I hate you.”

MJ pats her on the back, “I promise you Gwensie, you’re gonna thank me later.”

Gwen groans.

She can’t even have a second before she hears footsteps coming towards backstage, and she doesn’t need x-ray vision to know who they belong to.

And one thing is for sure: She cannot see Miles Morales right now.

So when Gwen Stacy’s friends walk into the backstage in excitement, they find three very confused girls, one of whom holding a trash bucket in her hands.

The girls look at Miles Morales in unison, then looking through the rest of the band of misfits that is Gwen Stacy’s friends: Hobie Brown, Pavitr Prabhakar, Peni Parker and Margo Kess.

“Hi,” Glory takes a step forward, “hi. This is weird. You must be Gwen’s friends.” She pushes the bucket in her hands towards MJ, who then takes it and puts it aside very carefully.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Gwendy’s gone eh?”

MJ laughs nervously, looking at Hobie, “Well- The thing is-“ she pauses, “Yeah. She is. She does that a lot.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Where’d she- Where did she go?” Miles asks the girls.

“She didn’t actually told us- I’m sorry. It was kind of my fault. I kind of forced her into that on the stage and-“

“Mary Jane, right? It’s fine. Thank you,” Miles says. “I think I know where to find her.”

“You do?” Pavitr asks, taking a moment. “Of course you do.”

“Yeah, just- Give me a moment, alright? I got this.”

“No one’s thinking of interfering Peter Pan,” Hobie settles on the couch, “Go do your thing. And you better come back snogging, cuz I ain’t owing Pav any money.”

Miles doesn’t hear the last part, because he’s already out of the building looking for his way to a familiar building.

MJ falls down on the other side of the couch, looking at Hobie, “You guys are betting over Stacy’s love life?”

“What of it?”

“I think we’re gonna be real good friends.”

Gwen feels safer watching the upside down view of her New York from the Williamsburg Bank Building. She’s come here quite often in the past year after Miles showed her a different use of the building. It reminded her of a more careless Miles, still safe from all the hurt and the tragedy that was to come his way, and she liked imagining him like that. She liked imagining him happy. Because just like everyone else, Miles Morales was perfectly happy before Gwen Stacy jumped in his life unannounced and started ruining everything.

And for some reason, he stuck around.

“I’m an idiot,” she whispers to herself eventually. “I never should’ve invited him. I never should’ve-“

“I’m glad you did,” she hears the familiar voice say from up above and her heart skips a beat. She stays silent and frozen for a while, as if pretending she’s not there will make him go away.

“Gwen,” he says, with tenderness in his voice, “I’m coming down there.”

She closes her eyes, but doesn’t move. What’s there to do anyways? She’s already ran away.

She sees Miles lean down and turn himself upside down to sit next to her by the corner of her eye, just like he did the first time.

They sit in silence for a while, looking at the view they once looked at, knowing it’s the same and yet different.

“I liked your songs,” he says after a while. Gwen finds herself chuckling, she doesn’t know if it’s the anxiety, adrenalin or the blood boiling crush that does it.

“Sure you did,” she says, wiping her slightly teared up eyes. “I’m sorry, Miles. That was weird. I shouldn’t have put you through that. I know you’ve…”

“You know I’ve what?”

“Moved on,” she mutters.

The silence stings a lot. So much that Gwen considers jumping down to run away from it.

“I could never move on from you,” Miles says quietly.

“What?”

“I could never move on, Gwen. You’re it. No one else.”

“But- why? How? You were so… distant. I just- I thought-“

“You made it very clear the last time we sat down here. I didn’t want to push you into a relationship you didn’t want.”

“Miles,” she says softly, “I didn’t- That wasn’t-“ she takes a deep breath, “I didn’t tell you everything back then.”

His pinky brushes towards hers, “Yeah?” he asks.

“I thought- I believed in the canon back then,” she whispers. “I thought that if I dared fall in love, I would end up like the rest of them.”

“Like who?” he whispers.

Gwen chuckles, “You really don’t know about the universal fate of Gwen Stacy, do you?”

Miles shakes his head silently.

“They die, Miles. They- We die. Every other Gwen Stacy, falls in love with Spider-Man and then falls to her death. There is no happy ending for Gwen Stacy. Sometimes I think maybe we deserve it,” she says. “If the others are anything like me, then maybe we really do. I know it’s not written somewhere and the canon is a big fat lie, but I can’t stop wondering,” she pulls her legs towards herself, “Some nights are just…”

His fingers wrap around hers and she looks back at him.

“The universe won’t punish you for being happy, Gwen.”

“That’s easy to say. But you don’t know that.”

“I know two things,” he says. “I know that you deserve to be happy, no matter what you think of yourself, and I know that when it feels like the universe sucks and has a vendetta against you, I will have your back. We will have your back, every time.”

Gwen lets out a breathy chuckle, wiping her eyes again.

“Miles?”

“Yeah?”

She leans towards him and puts her head on his shoulder.

“I think I love you,” she says.

“I was hoping you would.”

They sit in silence for a while, soaking in the moment, watching the view, having a moment to breathe.

“Thank you,” she whispers. He nods his head, “I know it doesn’t make anything magically better but… I need you to know that I’ll be here whenever you need it. All of our friends will. You of all people know this isn’t a burden to carry alone.” She nods too, holding him a little more tighter.

“Now come on,” he says pulling his head away to look at her, “this is your big day. Fans are waiting backstage.”

Gwen chuckles, and lets him pull her up.

Gwen Stacy lays on her bed, with her boyfriend beside her, going through the notebook filled with thoughts of him, feelings, stories and everything that makes her Gwen Stacy. He makes a snarky comment on her sappy lyrics and she chuckles, punching him in the arm lightly. He rolls off the bed jokingly, and catches her an pulls her down on the floor on the last second too.

“Dumbass,” she whispers. A big grin places on the boy’s face, pleasant. She gives him a kiss, only to be interrupted by the police radio  going off in her room. She chuckles with annoyance, pulling away.

“Great,” she says rolling on her back on the floor.

“I’ll race you there,” he grins.

No one sees the two kids leaping out of Captain George Stacy’s apartment in Spider costumes.

No one really needs to.