(September 2011, Saturday 11:35 am)
Something was wrong with Peter Parker.
Gwen Stacy knew that much. She didn't know what it was yet but she knew well enough to know that something was wrong with him.
.....
'How did it come to this?', Gwen Stacy couldn't help but ask herself.
Her life was getting good too. Key word 'was'.
She's in a band with gigs every other week that almost always sold out. Had a job at one of if not the top-notch research facilities in New York if you leave out the Baxter building.
She had no shortage of friends and she was top of her class too.
To top that all off; She was an ass-kicking, name-taking teenage superhero who dodged bullets daily.
With that said, one could argue that she dealt with all manner of weirdness in her life.
The radioactive spider that bit her during last year's science field trip was the first, the metaphorical spark that lit that flame.
Well, now that flame grew into a blazing inferno.
And the accumulation of that inferno for over two months was sitting across from her without a care in the world.
Peter Benjamin Parker, the resident science nerd, the smart mouth nerd, her best friend, and most recently the supervillain known as lizard responsible for the death of sixteen police officers and twenty-six civilians, not including the nearly one hundred more people in the hospital, her father included.
A literal mass murderer.
She should know, she read the reports, she couldn't help it. She just had to know.
Her father had the same password for most of his devices despite being the captain of the New York Police Department.
He should be behind bars right now, she should too if her father had a say in her extracurricular activities.
Yet here they were, an accidental teenage superhero/vigilante and a self-made mass-murdering teenage supervillain.
Even if she wanted to act on what she knew, who could she tell? how could she even explain it? Who would believe her? How far would it go without someone picking up hints about her secrets?
People weren't so dumb as to miss a few connections here and there, all they had to do was connect the dots, and bam. All they needed was a simple push in the right direction.
Maybe she was a bit selfish but she also didn't want anything to happen to Peter, not without fully understanding the situation.
The only problem was, she couldn't ask Peter directly.
"Sooo…Hey, I'm Spider-Woman, You know, that spider-themed, masked, superhero that almost beat you to death two months ago, like on the night before your Uncle and Aunt died…Yep, that's me... So yeah, let's talk about that"
She imagined Peter wouldn't take kindly to that info dump.
Memories of their fight wormed their way into her thoughts, she saw Peter begging her to stop, repeating over and over again in that silent whimper.
He lay there at her feet in a crater made from his fall, a twisted broken amalgamation of man and reptile.
A state she was responsible for.
"It wasn't me, I can't stop it, please, help me, stop it, it isn't me, it isn't me, it ishn't me. Help me, stop it, it's not me, WHY WON'T YOU HELP ME?"
She blinked the memory away, locking it back in that corner of her mind.
Remembering it now won't do any good, for either of them. She hated the way her stomach twisted in knots as guilt and resentment crept in.
She quickly shut them out as well, though it took some effort on her part.
She had to know what happened to him, that fact remained.
If he wasn't in control then what happened that day?
She did check up on him a few times in costume after their fight when the situation was settled with her dad and the things she saw Peter going through…
She never went back after that. She couldn't, she resented Peter too much back then for what he did, her guilt ate her up as if to add insult to injury, the tour with her band didn't help her situation either, and before she knew it a month had gone by.
' Seriously what is up with my life right now?', she glanced at the menu in her hand, using it as an excuse to gather her thoughts.
Peter was doing the same thing he had done since she got here, looking out the window with that bored expression still plastered on his face. He still hasn't said anything besides a simple hey when she arrived.
He didn't even look at her after their initial greeting.
Was he uncomfortable? How did he feel? Was he doing alright after what happened? What exactly happened? Did he hate her? Was he still angry with her? Did he know it was her behind the mask? Did he know who she was? Did he feel guilty about what he did? Why did he do it? Why did he kill those people? Why did he become that thing? How did he do it? Why did he do it?
So many questions to ask yet not a single word was uttered between them.
The silence was a comfort in a way, a safe escape from each other, despite everything that happened between them they were still comfortable with each other's presence, it did nothing to lessen the tension between them though.
They were at a coffee shop not far from where she interns over the weekend, sometimes after school too, Oz Corp. It was the place they both chose because they were both familiar with it, they usually came here during breaks when they were both working together before he was fired.
Before he became whatever that was…Back when everything was normal.
If someone had told her back then that becoming a superhero would one day lead to almost beating your best friend to death after he became some sort of mutated human reptile she would have laughed in their faces.
Times were simple back then.
Now she was having lunch with the very person she thought she beat to death. Here he was alive and well, not a single scar or a bruise.
Not a single mark to show for the deadly fight that transpired between them.
She stole a glance at him again, just to reassure herself that this was Peter Parker she was with.
And once again that same thought tore its way into the forefront of her mind.
Something was wrong with Peter Parker.
She realized that the moment he walked through the halls two days ago. Her guilt and resentment had been nagging her all month.
She hated herself for what she almost did to her friend and she resented him for what he did to her dad.
She wanted to blame him for everything, and at some point, she did just that, but eventually, she relented, she knew she couldn't go that far, it wasn't fair to him.
She had time to cool off her emotions and figured she should maybe give him the chance to do the same, maybe even explain himself somewhere down the line.
After all, she almost killed him.
And then he walked into the halls of midtown high that morning.
Gwen didn't see him come in, she didn't need to, she felt him the moment he stepped within range of her spider-sense.
The tingling sensation that kept her safe on numerous occasions went off like a bomb in the back of her skull. She didn't understand why.
He didn't do anything threatening if any at all, he just made his way to his desk and slouched down for the rest of that morning until Mr. Harrington walked in.
But that was the issue.
For the whole morning as he sat there, it felt like death itself came to midtown high, strolled into the classroom, and sat behind her in Peter's seat.
It scared her, she couldn't even look at him without flinching from the sensory overload of her spider-sense.
It got to the point where she couldn't stop shaking, her friends mistook it for anger at Peter so MJ took it upon herself to all but glower at Peter for the rest of the morning.
She would have kept it up all day had Gwen not stopped her when the doors to their class slammed open.
In fact, the moment Mr. Harrington walked in it stopped.
Her spider-sense stopped tingling, the bomb that went off in the back of her head vanished, and the overbearing feeling of dread dissipated.
Things just went back to normal. She didn't know why, but she had to find out.
So when Peter sent her a message to meet up here she made an excuse to all her friends and agreed to meet him.
There were things they needed to talk about, she was well aware of the effects her friends had on Peter and she loved MJ like a sister but having her here would make things worse.
It was better for them to have a one-on-one talk to sort things out.
" Hi, so what are we having?" a waiter asked Peter breaking her train of thought.
The waiter was a cute teenager no older than her or Peter with short brunette hair that complemented her bright brown eyes.
Her name tag read Ms. Green.
Gwen didn't even notice her walking up to them.
"I'll have a glass of water and whatever she's having".
"A glass of waterrr, alright, alright, alright, And what about you?" The waiter raised an eyebrow as she turned to Gwen. Her lips twisted up lightly, she had that look on her face.
'Wonderful' Gwen hung around enough girls to know that the waiter was enjoying this, so she just picked the first thing on the menu.
" I'll just have to have the chocolate smoothie".
" One glass of water and two chocolate smoothies coming right up". As she slipped past Peter she turned to give Gwen a wink and two thumps up, mouthing 'Hang in there sister, you got this' that slight smile morphing into a full-blown grin.
'At least someone's enjoying my misery' she sighed wistfully.
She was enjoying this a little too much, for Gwen's liking.
" I'm sorry," Peter said those words so quietly Gwen thought she had misheard him.
" What?".
"I'm sorry about, well, everything" he repeated.
Then for the first time since she arrived, he turned to face her and for the first time since she arrived, Gwen wished he didn't.
His eyes were empty, they lacked their usual glow, that tiny twinkle that made him Peter.
His expression didn't fit his face, his smile was wrong, like an ill-fitting mask that no longer matched the contours of his face and his attempts at a smile were feeble and unfamiliar.
His mannerisms felt alien to what she knew of her friend.
He looked different too. He was the same yet he wasn't.
He was slightly taller than what she remembered. His hair was wild and untamed, his arms were longer, and he looked bigger.
The way he moved was wrong.
Even the way he talked was different. His voice had this slight monotonic rhythm to it, no longer cracking. Just the same flow of sounds following the same tune.
Everything about Peter Parker right now felt off. They've known each other for years, went to the same classes since middle school, and were at each other's birthday party since they were thirteen.
She had known him all his life, just as much as he knew her maybe even more so. Granted they drifted apart over the last few months and they haven't spoken to each other since that whole thing at the hospital but she knew Peter.
At least, she knew enough to know that right now…
Something was very wrong with Peter Parker.
-Chapter End-