Chapter 11
The sky was still gray when Miles left. Gwen leaned against the front door, watching him disappear into the street’s lazy morning hum. Her dad was already off for an early shift, so no fake flirting or cutesy act needed—just real, quiet Miles shrugging his hoodie on and giving her a half smile before heading off.
She didn’t say anything when he looked back. Just lifted a hand and gave him a small wave. He returned it, and that was that.
The door clicked shut behind her, and suddenly the apartment felt too big again. Too quiet. Too hers.
She dragged her feet back to her room, feeling the weight of her body as she dropped onto her bed. The air still smelled like Miles—his cologne, his skin, maybe even the tiniest trace of her own shampoo on him. They had spent the night like they usually did now. Half clothed, half tangled, entirely unsure what they were doing.
The worst part was that she’d been fine with that. Until now.
Gwen stared at the ceiling. Her chest ached—not from missing Miles, but from not missing Peter. And that made her feel like the worst person alive.
She pressed her palm against her eyes, forcing the tears back. “Sorry, Pete,” she whispered into the silence.
The truth hit her like a brick.
It’d been happening slowly, she realized. Miles showing up more and more, sneaking her snacks at ballet when she skipped meals, offering her his hoodies even when she said she wasn’t cold. Teasing her at band practice while her friends smirked in the background. Watching movies on her laptop until she passed out and he stayed. Always stayed.
He was warm, steady. Present.
And Peter… Peter was a ghost in her bones.
“I didn’t forget you,” she muttered. “I just…”
She didn’t know how to finish that sentence. I just kept living? I just got tired of crying? Or maybe I just got used to someone else filling the space you left.
The guilt wrapped around her ribcage like a tight corset. She reached for her phone, scrolled up to an old picture of her and Peter. It was the one from last year—her in full eyeliner, Peter with his camera, grinning like a goof. That smile had always made her laugh.
Now it just made her feel sick.
But her eyes kept drifting. Up to the newest message from Miles. Just a little heart emoji he sent after leaving. Something so small and stupid. But it made her smile.
Her thumb hovered over the keyboard, thinking about responding. But she didn’t.
Instead, she tossed the phone to the side and rolled over, burying her face into her pillow.
Her chest still ached. But it wasn’t as hollow anymore. It was just… quieter.
And maybe that was okay.
Maybe.
The hum of the subway faded behind them as Miles and Uncle Aaron stepped into the alley near the mural wall. They'd just wrapped a clean job—silent, smooth, invisible. Not even Spider-Woman had shown up. That alone made Miles feel a little off-balance. She usually showed.
Aaron handed him a can of spray paint. “Alright, kid. Let’s loosen up the muscles and kill some time.”
Miles cracked a smile and shook the can. “This is your idea of recovery after a break-in?”
Aaron already had a rough outline of a jaguar on one section of the wall. “You wanna act like a ghost, you gotta keep the balance. Muscle for the job. Art for the soul.”
“You’re real poetic for a man with a bounty,” Miles muttered, half-laughing as he tagged his name in the corner and moved on to his own space.
He didn’t have a plan—he rarely did when painting. He just let his hand move, followed the flow of lines and colors. He started with some purple, then added in red. Maybe it was the palette of the city. Maybe it was something else.
When the outline started to form, he stepped back. His chest went tight.
Gwen.
It wasn’t on purpose. The curve of her jaw, the intensity of her eyes. She wasn’t smiling. The expression he’d painted was more serious, almost pained. Her hair whipped around like she was in motion. Almost like she was running.
He swallowed hard and kept painting.
Underneath her, he added more shapes. A figure crouched in shadows, fists clenched, the signature claws glowing in purple.
Spider-Woman and the Prowler.
He didn’t know when it started—when she became more than the girl he hooked up with and laughed with on rooftops. He didn’t know why, when he saw Spider-Woman now, his heart kicked a little harder in his chest.
It was annoying, honestly. Dangerous.
He stepped back again. The side-by-side images stared back at him. Gwen and Spider-Woman. Miles and the Prowler.
Was it the thrill? Was it her anger? Her strength? Or just the way she made him feel like he wasn’t drowning in this city? Maybe all of it.
“You paintin’ your girl?” Aaron asked behind him, eyes amused as he took a long drag from his cigarette.
Miles didn’t answer right away. “I don’t know,” he said finally.
Aaron smirked. “Which one? The drummer or the spider?”
Miles looked back at the wall. At her face—both of them. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say.
Maybe it was both.
Or maybe, he thought with a chill down his spine, they were the same.
He clenched the can tighter and looked away.
He really didn’t want that to be true.
The sirens echoed a little too close tonight.
Gwen's boots hit the rooftop ledge hard as she vaulted over it, breath tight, limbs burning. Officer George Stacy was good—too good. He'd chased her across half the city, and she swore he was getting faster, sharper. Maybe he sensed something. Maybe the act was cracking.
She ducked behind a large HVAC unit, hands braced on her knees as she tried to quiet her breathing. The lights from the hovering drone drifted past, scanning the rooftop, but didn’t catch her. Not this time.
When she looked up, she froze.
The Prowler sat near the edge of the roof, legs dangling over the side. He hadn’t noticed her yet—or maybe he had and just didn’t care. His mask was still on, but he looked… still. Heavy, like the city was pressing down on his shoulders and he wasn’t in the mood to fight back.
For some reason, Gwen didn’t run. She didn’t make a scene. She didn’t even say anything. She just walked over and sat beside him, leaving a foot of space between them. No banter. No flirting. Just silence, filled with the thrum of traffic below.
He glanced her way once, brief and unreadable, then looked back out over the skyline.
“You good?” Gwen asked eventually, voice quiet under the mask.
The Prowler shrugged. “Just thinking.”
She didn’t push. She understood that look—the one where your mind spins so fast it numbs out, where everything hurts too much to focus. She felt like that most days lately.
“Thought I’d get peace up here,” he said. “City never really shuts up.”
“Nope,” Gwen agreed. “It just gets quiet enough to hear your own brain.”
A beat of silence passed.
“You ever feel like you’re not supposed to be the one still breathing?” he asked suddenly.
The question caught her off guard. She looked at him, heart skipping. “Yeah.”
He nodded like he expected that. “You ever wonder why it’s us? Why we keep making it out?”
Gwen swallowed hard. “All the time.”
Another pause. Then he said it—low and simple, like it wasn’t about to knock the wind out of her.
“I think I love you.”
Her heart stopped. She stared at him, not sure she heard him right.
“What?”
“I don’t know,” he said, eyes still on the city. “I think I do. I don’t know what it means, but it’s there. Won’t leave me alone.”
Gwen’s throat closed. Her fingers twitched at her sides.
He turned his head, finally looking at her. “You don’t have to say anything. I just— I needed to say it once.”
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. The rooftop felt too small. Too exposed.
So she stood.
And without another word, she ran—leaping off the edge and disappearing into the night, because she wasn’t ready to know what it meant that she wanted to turn back.
Gwen couldn't get the sound of his voice out of her head.
It followed her like a second shadow—soft, low, a little hesitant. I think I love you. The words looped, uninvited, dragging through her thoughts as she perched on the edge of her fire escape in the dark. Her knees were pulled to her chest, cigarette burning low between two fingers. She hadn't even noticed lighting it.
She wasn't even sure how she got home. Just remembered her heartbeat thundering in her ears as she ran, the way her breath kept catching like she was about to cry but never did.
Gwen blinked up at the stars. They looked fake tonight—too still, too silent. Like a painted backdrop instead of something real. She took another drag, letting the smoke fill her lungs. She didn’t even like smoking. But it dulled things. Made the sharp ache of Peter's absence and the Prowler's voice a little more distant.
Her phone buzzed once. Then again.
She ignored it.
There were too many thoughts and none of them were helpful. She’d spent weeks clawing herself out of Peter’s death, just barely holding herself together with ballet routines and band rehearsals and stolen moments with Miles. She thought she was stabilizing. Healing, maybe.
But now…
Now she couldn’t stop replaying the way the Prowler looked at her. How his voice wasn’t mocking or flirty like usual. It was vulnerable. Honest.
I think I love you.
Gwen’s head dropped back against the brick. Her throat felt tight. “What the hell am I doing?” she whispered into the night.
Her phone buzzed again. This time, she looked.
Miles: u good?
Miles: did something happen??
She stared at the messages, thumb hovering over the screen. Then she stood, stubbed the cigarette out on the railing, and climbed back into her room.
Not even fifteen minutes later, she was knocking on his window.
Miles opened it immediately. He looked tired—shirtless in sweatpants, hair tied back, and that familiar worried look in his eyes that only ever showed when she came around like this.
“Gwen?” he asked softly.
She didn’t answer.
She kissed him instead.
No words. No explanations. Just lips on lips, hands tangling in his hoodie, like maybe she could make all the noise in her head shut up. She needed this. Needed him. The smell of him. The way he held her without questions.
And when they fell into bed again, Gwen didn’t pretend this time.
She didn’t have to.
Because as she closed her eyes and let herself feel, it wasn’t Miles she pictured.
It was the Prowler.
And for the first time in a long time… she liked the chaos of not knowing what that meant.
The city hummed beneath her boots. Neon lights blinked like dying stars and car horns echoed in the distance, but all Gwen could hear was the pounding of her own heartbeat as she crouched on the edge of a crumbling rooftop.
She waited.
He’d show up. He always did.
And sure enough, footsteps—slow, heavy, almost cautious—crunched behind her.
“You hiding or pouting?” the Prowler said, voice casual.
Spider-Woman didn’t turn around. “Maybe both.”
He came to stand beside her, the wind catching the tails of his coat. She could feel the way his presence shifted the space between them, like gravity tilted slightly when he was near.
They stood in silence for a minute. Two vigilantes off the clock, pretending not to be enemies. Pretending not to remember what he said the other night.
Gwen finally glanced at him, mask still on, but her voice quieter than usual. “You thought I wouldn’t show.”
“I wasn’t sure,” he replied. “Didn’t wanna push it.”
"You already did,” she muttered, then regretted it. “I just—needed time.”
He nodded, jaw tight behind the metal of his mask. “I get that.”
Gwen sighed and sat down on the rooftop’s ledge, legs dangling over the side. The Prowler hesitated before joining her, settling down with a small groan as his armor clicked into place.
The city felt quieter up here. Slower. Like for just a second, they weren’t two kids tangled up in too many masks and too much danger.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about what you said,” she admitted.
He didn’t say anything right away.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t know how to talk about it. About how part of her was still grieving Peter, still broken in all the places he used to hold together. How she didn’t know what to do with someone who looked at her like she was more than just a mask.
“I thought you were bluffing,” she said, voice thin.
“Would’ve been easier if I was,” he murmured.
She turned toward him. Slowly. The orange glow of the nearby streetlamps caught on his mask, painting him in gold and shadow. Her fingers twitched on the ledge.
He looked at her then—really looked. “You don’t have to say anything back. I just needed to say it. That’s all.”
“I’m not great with feelings,” she admitted. “Or like… knowing what’s real and what’s just adrenaline.”
He let out a dry chuckle. “Story of our lives.”
They were quiet again.
And then she reached out—hesitated—but let her gloved hand rest on his knee. Not a promise. Not a rejection. Just… a moment.
“You’re not running this time,” he said softly.
She tilted her head. “Not yet.”
And that’s when he leaned in.
She let him.
It wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t frantic. Just lips brushing lips, slow and unsure and heavy with all the things they hadn’t said. They didn’t take their masks off, didn’t say names. It was safer that way. Simpler.
But her fingers curled in his coat. His hand ghosted over her waist.
And maybe it didn’t mean anything.
Or maybe it meant everything.
But when they finally pulled apart, breathing just a little heavier, Spider-Woman whispered, “Don’t get cocky.”
The Prowler grinned behind his mask. “No promises, cariño."