The Falling Spider-Woman
It had been a little over a week since the fight with Kraven. It wasn’t like they hadn’t come across villains in their travels before, and they’d even run into parts of Osborn’s multiversal villain army, but this was different. They all knew that Kraven had been sent after them. The rules of the game had changed, and they’d been caught off guard. That wasn’t going to happen again, and they were going to make sure of it. In the meantime, though, things were the same as they’d ever been on this weird, fucked-up trip through the multiverse they’d been on.
She was on a bridge when he found her. Not a bridge, the bridge. This universe’s version of it anyway. The darkness of the night and the flurry of snow that had started broke apart the whites and blacks of her costume to the point that she was nearly impossible to distinguish. It wasn’t until she looked back, alerted by the sound of his footsteps, that Hobie was able to see the red eye outlines of her mask. From that, the rest of her came into focus.
“Gwendy, what are you doing out here? I know I’m supposed to say, like ‘hypothermia is a construct of the man’ but you are legitimately going to get hypothermia out here,” he said to her. Even wrapped up in the warmest jacket he had, the chill of winter was biting at him. He couldn’t imagine how Gwen was out here in only her costume.
“Do you even know what this place is?” Gwen asked in a hushed voice. She was still looking in his direction, but even from behind the mask he could tell that her eyes weren’t quite meeting his. It was a habit of hers he’d noticed over the course of many long nights talking about, or more often talking around, her life before the Spider-Society.
“I know that it’s not the motel where we’re staying. I know it’s not where the rest of our mates are,” he did know, of course, what this place was, if only vaguely. He’d never gotten particularly close to any of the Peters in the Spider-Society, certainly not close enough to discuss the Bridge in any sort of detail. And anyone who did know about it didn’t tell him much. Talking around things was apparently a Spider thing more than a Gwen thing “they were worried when you ran off as soon as we made it to this universe”
“I didn’t ‘run off’ I just…had somewhere to be,” Gwen responded. Hobie was glad she was at least engaging in the conversation.
“And, this,” Hobie said, gesturing around the Bridge, “was that somewhere. Yeah it seems really urgent that you be here right now,”
Gwen took a deep breath, seemingly about to deliver some kind of retort, but instead she simply turned around and sat down, her legs dangling over the edge of the bridge. Hobie was momentarily unsure of what to do, before she reached out and patted the spot next to her, inviting him to sit down.
He did, and promptly put his jacket around her.
“Is this chivalry, Hobie? I can’t believe you’d do something so archaic,” Gwen said, with equal parts sarcasm and affection.
“Maybe I’ll just take the jacket back then, if you’ve got no appreciation,” he responded, grabbing one of the long sleeves and making a mock-effort of wrestling it away from Gwen. They laughed together for a moment, but then a silence hung, broken up only by the sound of the winter wind.
“So, are you having a crisis or something? Because you know if you’re having a crisis we’re all gonna be having crises also. So we should probably all be together, so we can have our crises as a group,” Hobie says. She looks over at him, and then down at her knees, and beyond that, the water below them.
“I’m not ‘having a crisis’” she responds after a moment “this just - it felt like something I needed to do,”
“What do you mean?” Hobie asks.
“I mean I thought being here, it might help me feel, I don’t know, close to her. Or something,” Gwen answers.
“Her?”
“Gwen Stacy. The original Gwen Stacy.”
“Oh. wow.”
“Yeah, ‘wow’, I came here to try and then I had this totally crazy thought. I thought, what if I can save her. Like, what if she shows up, today, and I’m here waiting and I can save her,” Gwen continues, the strange truth pouring out of her.
“Gwendy, c’mon man, that’s not gonna happen. Not today, anyway. We can talk about this as a team when you come back to the motel,” Hobie answers. He tries to put every bit of comforting nature he has into it. To make it feel like just another one of their late night talks.
“Don’t talk to me like that, Hobie,” Gwen answers, a sting in her voice.
“Like what?” Hobie asks.
“Like I’m some loose cannon who’s about to run off and go all 11080 on your ass. I’m not even doing anything wrong, I’m just visiting a bridge. It’s not even your business,” Gwen responds, angrier than she thought she would be.
“It’s all of our business when it puts us in danger. We have a mission, here, Gwen,” Hobie says. Gwen is reacting nothing like he thought she was, and he’s unsure of how to respond. But he can tell that how he did respond was definitely the wrong way.
“‘A mission’? Seriously Hobie? You call yourself an anarchist, but right now, you sound just like Miguel,” Gwen responds.
“That is not fair, Gwen, and you know it” Hobie responds, standing up.
“You know what’s not fair, Hobie? The fact that because of this war, I have to walk through a million universes where I was this perfect, beautiful, brilliant girl. Universes where I did everything right, and I died anyway,” Gwen says. She stands up too, the height difference between her and Hobie forcing her to look up at him if she wants to see his face “And what’s really, really not fair, is that after all this is done, and the multiverse is saved, I’m gonna have to go back home. Home where I just keep fucking everything up and living anyway,”
“Gwen-” Hobie begins. She doesn’t let him finish.
“Sometimes” Gwen says “I wonder what she’d think, if she knew me, now. I think she would be really disappointed in all the mistakes I’ve made”
It’s quiet, for the first moment after she speaks. And in the second moment, Hobie hugs her. In the third moment, she’s racking her brain for any memory of Hobie ever hugging anyone, but she comes up empty. In the third moment, she’s wrapped her arms around him and is crying silently into the crook of his neck.
“I’m sorry about what I said” she tells him after what feels like an eternity “I didn’t mean it. You’re not like Miguel at all. You’re a good leader, and a good man. I don’t know if anyone’s told you that yet, but you’re a good man” She pulls her head out of the crook of his neck, and looks him straight in the eyes. Her hands find their place laced around the back of his neck, and his on her hips. As they sway together in the wind, they almost look like they’re slow dancing.
They stay, together like that, for a while, but eventually they really do head back to the motel. They are greeted with hugs and interrogations in equal parts by the rest of the Spider-Team. And after many answers, some true, some less so, the rest of the team is satisfied. Gwen falls asleep in her bed, Hobie’s jacket still wrapped around her, dreaming of her father, and of Peter. Many miles away, another Gwen Stacy falls asleep, and dreams of much the same.