The Prowler

Miles turned to the voice that gave the compliment, and it was Gwen.

Shoot.

Miles saw that Gwen had longer hair than his Gwen, and had it in a ponytail. She also had tech implanted on her temples. Her blue eyes were sparkling and brighter, unlike her counterpart whose eyes are a bit dull at times.

Gwen continued “-Or is that not a custome-“

“It is a custome.” Miles cut her off quickly, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sooo yup, it’s a custome ha ha ha…”

An eternity pasted for a second and Gwen was getting bored.

Gwen narrowed her eye, “So are you going to tell your name and pronouns or…”

“Oh! Yeah. Um, my name is Miles Morales and my pronouns are um, he/him.” He fumbled with saying his pronouns. (He really should practice it more).

“Gwen Stacy pronouns are she/her.” She then clapped her hands together. “Great! Now that’s over are you new here because I haven’t seen you around here before.”

’I know Gwen.’

“Yeah I’m.” Miles said.

“Good. Let me give you a tour.”

Gwen Stacy led Miles around the building. The area he first entered was the cafeteria. On the second floor was bedrooms and health care centers where patients could get their enhancements at. The third floor was a gym and training area. Ground was the lab.

Gwen pressed on, handing out supplies and food to the people, while Miles eyed the people around him and bumped into some of them.

“So what’s up with the spider thing. Are you going to comic con or something?” Gwen asked handing out an ice pack to him.

“No it’s not for comic con it’s just a something I made up.” Miles lied. “And I also like spiders.”

”Cool.”

Since this universe has no spiderman it’s best to keep a secret for now.

Gwen then led him to a spare room in the second floor for him to sleep in. But Miles was awake most of the night, thinking about everything that happened, especially Gwen. And it didn’t help that she was here.

But he had a plan: Find someone who can help him get out of here.

Miles then finally fell asleep with the hours he had left to get his plan motion.

In the morning Miles went to the cafeteria for some breakfast. But he started glitching before he got there.

“Miles!” Gwen rushed over to his side and got him on his feet, “Come on let’s go. I can get you to my lab.”

”Lab?” He groans but leans into her.

‘Why would Gwen have a lab?’

”I can make something up to help you.” She explained as they made it to the elevator.

Gwen got out a key card to unlock the elevator for the lab and they stepped in.

“I’m okay now.” 

She then lets go so he could stand on his own.

Gwen bit her lip, thinking of what say as the elevator was still moving.

‘It’s okay Gwen. You just need to ask about the glitchy thing without messing up.’

She turned to Miles and spoke. “Um Miles do you know what happened?”

‘Yay! No word mess up!’

Miles sighed, “Okay gonna tell you something that will probably not make sense but…I’m not from this universe.”

“Oh good I’m glad it’s that.”

“What?”

“Well I feel like the doctors wouldn’t know what to do with rainbow-death-shape-itis .” She laughed.

Gwen glanced at Miles and backed away with little space what they had.

“Wha, come on it’s not contagious.” He pushed on her shoulder playfully, “Oh! Sorry my bad.”

‘Not your Gwen Miles!’

“It’s okay.” She giggled waving him off.

 The elevator dinged at the stop and it opened. They walked out and into the hallway with tons of rooms on either sides. One of the rooms had more experimental technological limbs and other stuff.

Miles wondered about the tech and who did this to have the people make all of these things.

Before he could ask about his thoughts Gwen cuts in. “But the Rainbow-death-shapes makes sense because your atoms are not compatible with this dimension.”

Miles was taken aback by the comment.

“What?”

“Oh, sorry I didn’t know that you were smart.”He blurted out.

She glared at him.

“I-I didn’t mean it like that it’s just that I have a Gwen…somewhere else.” He explained tapping his finger-tips together awkwardly.

Gwen’s expression relaxed, “Yeah that makes sense. What is she like?” She asked typing in a code to a door.

“She pretty cool.” Miles held his hands under his armpits.

“I’ll take your word for it.” She smiled, pushing the door open to her lab.

“Welcome to my lab!…Slash bedroom, slash kitchen, slash…everything else?” Gwen questioned.

Miles glazed over the simple kitchen and the work space that took over some of the room with different projects and scraps of metal laying around. The bedroom area had bookshelves and a white board with equations, and the bed was hanging from the ceiling—‘What would you get up?!’ But Miles ignored his shock.

From the looks of it Gwen seemed to be more into engineering and inventing things than playing the drums. Miles was rocky start  by mixing Gwen up with his Gwen. Miles thought about making better ground with her.

Gwen stepped and tripped over things around her. “Sorry about the mess. I get a little scatterbrained when I’m planning something,” She said reaching for tools.

“Have a seat,” She gestures to the tools at one of her work desks.

Miles then a bit shifted to get to his seat. Gwen tripped again but caught herself with an outstretched metal arm.

Miles eyes widened. A metal arm. Metal octopus arm.

Her metal arm angrily stomped on metal and wires that was right next to her, muttering something about stupid trash. Gwen lifted her metal arm and held it to herself plucking the scraps that was stuck in her arm.

Gwen looked up at Miles in confusion. She held her metal arm out of instinct.

Miles realizes this and thinks of a way to distract each other. “Hey you want to listen to music?”

“Um, yeah what do you want to listen?”

“Whatever you like.” He said simply.

“Okay.” Gwen relaxed, getting the music started.

~Say hey.

. . .

Coming down like an Armageddon flame.

 The shame. The ones who died without a name.~

As the music played they both got started on designing a device that would help regulate the atoms getting too damaged. Miles sketched out more designs for the device while Gwen worked through the math and talked about how it would work with the design.

When they found one they liked Gwen told Miles that it will little while, so he can relax for now.

Miles headed over to the couch plops down on it, brain tired. With the events going on he just was tired, he wanted to go home. He wanted to see his friends again. 

Miles thought again about what his Mom said; and how he wants to go grow on his own with people who understand him… Except they meant not accept him or fully understand him.

He shifted on the couch only to hit something and having to pick it up. It was a book, about cloning. He flipped through some it and it talked about things that he didn’t have the brain power for.

He looked over to see how Gwen was doing with the device. She seemed focused on working with her arms flared out working on auto pilot.

Miles laid down and found something to  do with scrap paper. He started drawing as the music drowned out his thoughts. He wasn’t aiming for anything specific or complicated, he just wanted to draw something to get his mind off of things.

“Hey Miles, I think I’m done!” Gwen called out.

Miles perked up at the news and jump off the couch and ran over to her.

“Okay so everything seems to be stable and I think it’s good to go.” She said holding up the device. It was metal watch that had a green computer screen that told about his vitals. And there was spiders embedded along the rest of the watch. And there were three patches that were designed for helping of spreading around body.

Miles then put everything on, and things seemed to be normal. Miles sighed as his body relaxed.

“Thank you for helping me even though I put you through all that trouble.”

“It was no trouble at all, I had a lot of fun. And all of this,” Her metal arm gesturing toward her lab part of the room. “It kinda help me get out of head at times.” She shrugged leaning back against a desk.

Miles was now looking at Gwen metal arms. The arms were sliver with painted green swirls on it, and at the end was sharp claws. He wasn’t being fair. He shouldn’t be judging her for having four arms 

“I’m sorry for the weird shock about your arms.” Miles said.

“It’s fine. No need to worry about me.” She smiled, “Whose that person you drew?” Gwen pointed at the drawing.

Miles didn’t realize that that he was still holding it. “It’s my Mami.”

Gwen hummed examining on to her metal, “My Dad makes things feel better when I’m upset. He would help me whenever I was stuck on a project.”

Gwen then looked into Miles eyes with determination. “Miles. I promise I will help you find a way to get back to your dimension.”

“Uh…Thanks, Gwen.”

“And I know it a kindergarten thing to ask but… do you want to be friends?”

“Yeah, we can.”