the virtual spider-woman.
“What are you doing right now?” Margo asked, incredulous. She’d stepped out of her room hoping to grab some snacks from the vending machine down on the lower level of the motel. She hadn’t expected to see Gwen crouched on the roof of the motel, seemingly just about to thwip off into the heart of this universe’s New York City.
“I’m going into the city to fight some crime. Or at least to protect some people. That’s what being Spider-Woman is about.” Gwen responds. It feels awkward to Margo, having to look up like this to see Gwen’s masked face.
“This isn’t being Spider-Woman, Gwen. This is being bored. I know you don’t think I’m an actual superhero, but can you just trust me on this?” Margo says. The shadows from Gwen’s hood shift as the breeze blows, obscuring her face.
“I don’t think that about you.” Gwen says. Margo looks away, she’d always thought Gwen believed that, she thought all the other Spiders did. Gwen jumps down from the roof with the kind of dancer’s flourish that she always uses. Margo has always been overwhelmed by all the little incredible things that the Spiders did all the time, things Margo had never even seen outside of the virtual world, that the Spider don’t even seem to recognize as incredible.
“Margo, do you actually think I think that about you?” Gwen asks, pulling her mask off. Margo turns to face her, braced for the hurt look on her face.
“I-I don’t know. You shouldn’t be out here in your costume. C’mon, let’s go to my room,” Margo answers finally, not quite ready to have this conversation.
Margo’s clothes are a little too small for her, Gwen can’t help but think. She’d appreciated Margo’s offer to borrow her clothes when she changed out of the Spider-Suit, but now that she was in the bathroom changing it seemed a little awkward.
“So, what crime fighting did you think you were going to do anyway? You can’t possibly have a police scanner for crimes in this universe, can you?” Margo asked playfully from the other room. She picked at her nails, suddenly anxious that she’d made some kind of faux pas by inviting Gwen pack to her motel room. She’d never had many serious female friendships in her home universe, let alone female friends she’d gone on the run and traveled the multiverse with. She wasn’t quite sure what the rules were.
“I don’t know, it’s New York, right? I figure in any universe you could just run around for a while in a Spider-Suit and somebody would try to kill you.” Gwen explains from the bathroom.
“This universe doesn’t have a Spider-Woman yet, actually. So you’d just look like a random freak. No offense.” Margo replies. When she looks up, Gwen opens the bathroom door and steps out wearing some of Margo’s clothes. They’re too small for her, Margo realizes.
“How do you know that?” Gwen asks, walking forward and sitting down next to Margo on her bed. She turns to Margo and brushes her hair out of her face. Her undercut has gotten shaggier since they’ve been on the run. Everyone’s hair has, without anyone having the time to visit a salon in between escaping multiversal villains. Margo had kept her hair in dreads and a bun, needing to keep in out of her face if they had to suddenly escape some of Harry Osborn’s multiversal army.
“Well, its pretty simple. Most Spiders go public pretty soon after their origins, so if you just get on a universe’s world wide web you can see if they exist yet. If they’re trying to stay on the down low, you can usually just look around on cryptid message boards and the like to find something. It’s usually bullshit, but I guess being a Spider makes it easier to spot other ones.”
“I know what you mean, Margo” Gwen responds “I spotted you. I do think that you’re a Spider. I really mean that. I hope you believe me.”
“I do, I guess” Margo explains “it's just hard to especially secure, you know. I mean, I don’t have any ‘real’ powers. Its just my hard light technology. All the crime fighting I did before the society was in the virtual world. And now, with the society gone, I’m not even sure what I’m doing here,”
“What you’re doing here is saving the multiverse. Well, what you’re doing HERE is getting a pep talk, but you know what I mean” Gwen says, slouching to rest her head on Margo’s shoulder. Margo looks down at her and smiles.
“Ha, for once I do actually know what you mean,” Margot says with a smirk
“HEY! I’m not that cryptic am I?” Gwen replies in mock-anger, playfully punching Margo on the shoulder.
“Not cryptic, but SO angsty. Like oh my god do you even know how you sounded when you first showed up at the society?” Margo says “you were like ‘I’m Spider -Woman, don’t talk to me I’m way too angsty to hang out with all you other Spiders,’” she continues in an over-the-top impression of Gwen’s Spider-Woman voice.
“I wasn’t that bad, was I?” Gwen asks with a giggle.
“You totally were,” Margo answers “It’s okay though. We’re hanging out now, at least,”
“And all it took was the end of the world!” Gwen says, a bit more harshly than she intended.
“Hey, don’t talk like that,” Margo says “we’re going to win, you know. We’re going to beat Harry Osborn, and take back the Multiverse,” she looks Gwen in the eye, with a spark in her eye that proves to Gwen that she really means what she’s saying.
“How can you be sure of that?” Gwen asks.
“Because” Margo says, a smile spreading on her face “I’m on this team,”
“I can’t argue with that” Gwen answers.