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Gwen panted lightly as she swung after Miles. He had been avoiding her for the past three months after all the… stuff ended. He had seemed to patch things up with Peter quite well, but she chalked that down to his care for Mayday. But he was avoiding her. She knew she deserved it, after all. She had let Miguel know where he was, hadn’t visited him in ages, and she had betrayed him. Gwen knew she could be a shitty friend. It’s how she lost her Peter in the first place. It’s why she didn’t make friends for ages after he left. It’s why she struggled to even talk to her goddamn band members, girls she knew for years.
But she hoped whatever she hoped was up there that she wouldn’t lose her Miles.
“Miles! Miles, wait-,” she called after him, landing on one of the buildings in Earth-610 to catch her breath. He stopped a couple buildings forward, but didn’t look back. Fighting back tears, she hopped to him, expecting him to swing away like he had done every time they had to work together for the past two months, after he was allowed back in. He didn’t, but continued staring into seemingly nothing. Sitting down next to him, she fiddled with the settings on her web shooters, not daring to even look at his mask. She had been planning her apology (rehearsing, more like) for ages, but now when actually presented with the opportunity, she froze.
Like she always did.
She inhaled as she slid off her mask and hood, still not looking in his direction. Gwen opened her mouth… and shut it. This was almost humiliating. She knew she had her reasons for what she did, like she was homeless and was threatened to be shot by her dad and everyone was calling her a murderer . She wanted to scream, why was she at fault? Why was everything her fault all the time? It shouldn’t be her fault. She slumped her shoulders. It shouldn’t be her fault, and yet it was. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried yet again. “Miles, I know this isn’t enough, and it’ll never be enough, but I’m really-”
“I know.” Miles had uttered the first words he had said to her in a long time. She was privately hoping she could apologise without becoming a snotty mess, and he would jump up and down in joy and exclaim, “Of course I forgive you, Gwen, I forgive you and I never want to have a bad relationship with you ever again!” But she knew that was not going to happen. Not even if she wished really hard on every north star in every universe she entered. And he still didn’t look at her. God, it felt almost degrading. She’d rather he’d just snap at her or even punch her, but he was acting like she wasn’t even there. Kind of. He sighed and looked down. “I know you’re sorry. I know what you did was wrong and I was mad at you for it.” He paused, picking at his suit. Then he pushed up his mask, those brown eyes she loved staring really hard at his jordans. He still didn’t even give her a glance.
She was making this worse for him.
“I think I still am kinda mad at you.” He looked up at the horizon and exhaled. “Not just you, obviously. I think I’m still mad at Pete, too.” Her heart lurched. She wished she didn’t feel a bit better knowing that he was still ‘mad’ at Peter, but she did. Man, she must be a horrible person. Miles closed his eyes, still trying to sort everything out. “But I know you had your reasons. I wasn’t the only one that Miguel was an asshole to, and I know you had your whole thing with your dad.” The pair sat in silence. She hadn’t really spoken about what had happened with her dad, but she had known that Hobie had accidentally let something slip during one of his angry rants in front of Miles. Gwen had told him not to, but she knew sooner or later, he would’ve said something. Miles looked down again, almost ashamed. He still didn’t look at her.
She wanted him to look at her, even if it was for a second.
Gwen inhaled again, breaking the silence. “That’s not a valid excuse. I shouldn’t have hurt you, that’s not what good friends do, and I know-” she squeezed her eyes shut, “-I know I can be a bad friend. I need to work on that, but please , Miles, I’m sorry.” A lump formed in her throat, but she pushed on, fighting the wobble in her voice. “I don’t- I can’t lose you , and I really, really miss you.” Her voice teetered, putting her in danger of sobbing. She couldn’t cry, it was weak. It would ruin all her efforts of trying to sound genuine and would make her seem like she was spilling crocodile tears. Nobody appreciated crocodile tears, especially not her. She looked at him, forcing herself to not cry. “I know you don’t have to forgive me, you don’t need to, but for the sake of-” she gulped, “for the sake of our first adventure together, could you at least consider forgiving Peter and I?” She bit the inside of her cheek as she looked away.
Well, that wasn’t what she practised at all.
Shoving her mask back on, she closed her eyes. She was so tired. Miles looked at her for the first time during that conversation, a somewhat unreadable expression. Despite her practically begging internally for her to look at him, this really ticked her off. Because he wasn’t saying anything. “Dammit, Miles, just yell at me!” she exclaimed while getting up. “Call me names, punch me, hit me, just do something!” The lump in her throat grew but she didn’t care. At least it would provoke a reaction. “I’m fucking sick of swinging after you just for you to ignore me! I know I fucked up! Acknowledge it! Acknowledge me , dammit!” She panted heavily as he stood up, mask still clutched in his grasp. Folding his arms, he inhaled. And exhaled.
She really wished that he didn’t yell at her, and just treated her like she was a stroppy toddler. But she really wanted him to yell at her, or even let her die like every other Gwen Stacy.
“Fine.I’ll yell at you,” he said shortly. “What you did was an asshole move.” His grip tightened on his mask. “And I was so angry- I am angry, what the hell am I talking about?” He huffed, pressing his heel of his palm to his nose ridge. “You know- you know I majored in fucking Physics just to see if I could find a way to see you again. I drew you in my notebook for two years, Stacy. All while having to deal with hiding the fact that I’m Spider-Man from my parents.” He paced around on the building, stance slowly getting more jagged. “Do you know how many dinners I’ve sat through with my mom going all ‘Ay, Miles, what happened to that Gwanda girl?’ Do you know my mom thought-” he hiccupped, tears in his own eyes, “I made you up because I was ‘so detached’? I’m not detached, I was still waiting to see you around- you promised me, Gwen!” He panted. His eyes had a weird glow to them, like they always did before he electrocuted something. She closed her eyes, waiting for the worst of it. “And when you finally came back, you, you, you gave me up to that hijo de puta, what was that about?” He hiccupped, before pacing towards her. She froze yet again, awaiting the final blow. “And you know what really ties it all together?”
This was it. Her death. Or the loss of a friend. The former was preferable.
His arms enveloped her, making her eyes widen. That was never in any of the scenarios she imagined. He sniffled slightly before burying his face into the crook of her neck. “I know it’s not your fault,” he murmured as she lifted her mask hesitantly. She didn’t know what to expect. A quick shock could end her, and she knew Miles was strong enough to throw her off the building, yet he did neither. She stammered as he shushed her. “Don’t strain yourself, Gwen. You don’t need me to be mad at you as well as yourself.” He pulled back, then wiped his eyes. Blinking, she looked at his hands, still expecting a little zap or being kicked off the building. Miles shook his head. “I’m not going to hurt you, Gwen.” Shushing her stammering, he pulled her in for another hug, slightly rocking her back and forth. “You can cry if you want.”
A little something Peter had shown him a couple weeks back, but Gwen didn’t need to know that.
Gwen shut her eyes, refusing to listen. She wouldn’t cry, she couldn’t cry, she was too old for that- but the hug was so comforting and she hadn’t felt so loved in such a long time that she let out a small sob. As she felt the weight of Miles’ head on hers, something snapped. The cold exterior she had been working so hard to keep up for the past two years but always seemed to ebb in front of him had broken down completely. She let out another small sob, before her knees buckled and she started bawling like a baby. Sitting her down, Miles continued rocking her back and forth as he listened to her useless attempts at speech. At apologies that had already been forgiven. At pleas to hurt her. He continued stroking her hair gently as she continued bawling like a little kid. They sat like that for what felt like an eternity.
He didn’t mind that her mascara smeared slightly on his spider-logo, or that snot slightly splashed on his arm. He had tissue anyway. What mattered was that she stopped waiting for the worst. They did enough of that everyday, he wanted her to have a break. Miles knew that he would kill for a little sob session, so why wouldn’t she? As she calmed down, Miles dug around in his jacket pocket and handed her a wad of tissues. They were significantly less problematic than the baby powder, but he held back on endorsing them for a while. Better to not take the risk. Taking the tissues less than gracefully, she blew her nose and took a deep breath. “Better?” he asked
“Hmm?”
“Do you feel better, Gwen?” he repeated. She nodded. For the first time in months, her chest felt light. Glancing at his suit, she swore a little, moving to wipe off the mascara before remembering her tissues were snot-filled. He laughed lightly. “I don’t care, Gwen. As long as you aren’t keeping your feelings all tucked away like that.” She nodded slowly, looking down in embarrassment. “I…” he paused slightly. “I don’t know if I can forget what happened between us, but I do forgive you. You had your own stuff going on, and I can’t hold that against you.” She twiddled with her fingers a little. The pair sat in silence as Miles leaned his shoulder onto her, reminding her of that fateful afternoon. “You wanna see if we can convince Pete that he accidentally opened TGI Spidey’s again?” Gwen laughed a little, wiping her face.
“Sure.”
Thank you, Miles,
she thought.