Prologue
THERE'S A BIG DIFFERENCE, in the sound of real silverware on ceramic plates, as opposed to wooden chopsticks in cardboard take out boxes. Gwen remembers the sound of lively dinners, accompanied with the harmonic background flatscreen TV and the capophy of outside New York. Of course, the latter is still present in the evening meal. Just less so than when they lived closer to the action in downtown. Gwen remembers the baseboard by the front door of their last apartment, stained with her own crayon drawing and the door trim hacked into by her father's patrol knife. "Now, Gwenny, just because I'm taking a knife to the trim doesn't mean you can," he told her gently as he hacked away the plaster to mark her height. She was six or seven, and didn't even reach full at his hips.
"Yes, daddy," she told him, despite having the complete opposite plans. The burly man was known almost solely for his upholding of the law before anything else, property damage included. But this was his daughter, and she was growing like a weed. Three times a week she raced in through that door after balet practice, jumping up to climb her father with a pair of rough sanded and painted flats. Her mother had helped her dye them, but Gwen got excited and blotted color across them like an eager finger paint session. She was scolded rather firmly on the issue, as her mother tended to hold firm to household laws just like her father to the state.
Gwen hadn't stepped foot in that house since she was eleven.
"How was school?" her father asked blandly, preoccupied with fishing edamame out of his chinese take away box. Gwen twirled her chopsticks around in her own half eaten box, staring out at the pile her father had already finished.
"It was... fine." She found words after taking a rather small bite, due to her imbalance use of chopsticks. She would have jumped up to grab a fork if there were any clean in the sink, but, there wasn't.
"Just fine? No... tests or uh, boys or friends? No nothin'?"
"No dad, no nothing."
They went back to picking around their food. She could tell her dad was itching to grab the TV remote, but dinners had been a silent affair for a few years now. He couldn't stand to be reminded of her, and there was hardly anything good worth watching on the TV besides news, anyways. Then before they knew it, the news led to him picking up his talkie, phoning up his cop buddies and getting caught up into work. Again.
"Watched a few kids get into fight at lunch over a honey bun," she finally caved, blurting the most insignificant thing that had happened all day. Her dad hummed. Maybe, if he was different, he would ask her who won, or what techniques they used to fight. 'Did one of them throw a punch?' Or possibly, 'a catfight?' or anything in general related to that register.
Instead, his face resembled that of one of a disappointed grandma looking at an uncouth youth who had dyed their hair neon vomit green. "Kids aught to know better by now. Glad you stayed out of it." He nodded at his own wisdom, expertly grabbing up the next box of lo mien and cracking it open with his chopsticks in only one hand. She huffed.
Gwen did in fact, not stay out of it. She made it her own responsibility to stop the fight by jumping in herself. The teachers were already busy stopping a few other catfights happening, and of course her own raised and bred self-righteousness kept her from eating her meal in peace. She had a black eye until she crawled out of the hell hole for the evening. Visions academy may have prided itself on being so prestigious and stuck up, but in the end it was still just a high school in Brooklyn.
"Unit 10-20?" Came a crash through his radio, and the two of them groaned collectively. He reached from his spot against the arm of the couch - where Gwen sat atop the opposite arm - for his radio in his coat pocket draped across the back of the soft lilac cushions.
"10-10A, over." He buzzed back, and his daugher was already gathering her things out of the living room. An armful of soggy boxes to carry three steps to the kitchen, broken sticks and sticky napkins. "Gwenny, I don't want to go." He said to the soft sounds of her light feet moving to clean their mess. She stopped at the kitchen counter and rested her palm against the cool epoxy. It just happened to be the only spot not covered in junk mail, food, keys or other bits and bobs or trash. This was the most emotion his voice had held since he walked in the door and called for her to 'come eat, I've got your favorite.'
Cheap chinese, was in fact, not Gwen Stacy's 'favorite.'
"I know you don't, dad." She said instead of making it worse on him. There was no use to argue, or bitch or whine and complain. Moaning and groaning got you no where but more upset, so Gwen took a deep breath and put on her big girl pants. She smiled when he stood and turned to look at her.
"Units 10-71, 10-54. Need back up on third and main. "
Neither of them moved in the watery light of the kitchen linoleum and shaggy carpet. A dog yowled outside painfully. Sirens headed down the street almost twenty stories below, distorted at the admonishment of drivers trying to make it home for the night without being rammed by a police car. The upstairs neighbors began to fight, something heavy thrown down onto the floor harshly. Neither Stacy flinched, caught in a desperate and silent fight.
"I'll buy you your favorite ice cream on the way home?" His voice was so hopeful, so playfully lenient and naïve.
"The light bill is overdue." She deadpanned. twirling the mail at the top of the pile in her left fingers. The thin plastic crinkled under her touch, rough red stamp flashing towards her father. OVERDUE. Gwen's dad closed his eyes tight and took a thumb to his temple. "It's fine, just go dad. Duty calls, right?"
"Code two, officer Stacy on backup?" The voice pleaded across the radio.
"...Right," he said finally. She saw to him out the door, pressing fresh socks into his hand as well as his car keys and overdue light bill.
Gwen watched the door shut and stared at the plaster trim, caked in dirt near the handle and double dead bolts. She locked them slowly, with the resignation a man slowly dying has. The trim here had no etches from a dull duty knife, or colorful crayon. Just dirt, and the landlord special coat of paint atop it. Gwen trotted back to her own bedroom, and left the door open as she reached to the left for her penguin. Inside she clicked her stolen police radio, and listened all night to make sure her father was safe.
She wanted to go out on patrol herself, but she'd made a promise to Peter the year before. Each birthday she had was to be spent taking a day 'off.' She didn't know at the time that he was privy to her own double agent life, but hey, you have that sometimes.
You have birthdays sometimes, and sometimes, your own father doesn't remember to wish you the best. Gwen laid in bed stairing at her glow in the dark sticker stars, wondering in what universe she'd have a moment to just, be.
Just be sixteen, like other kids were and did, had been and would be.