Chapter 3
It’d only been a few days since he’d first taken Gwen to the Williamsburg Bank Building. Miles didn’t know why he expected the view to be different. But as he looked out upon the pastel blue sky and the lights of the city, his city, he felt comfortable for the first time in days.
Miles didn’t bother to flip upside down this time. He didn’t know how long they’d be here, and as much as he’d put on a cool face for Gwen last time, he really didn’t enjoy the blood rushing to his head.
She’d followed his lead the whole way there, swinging just behind him and now walking a few feet back as he clambered to their spot and dropped to a seat. She tentatively sat a foot away, the same distance they were last time they were here.
Miles let them sit in silence for a minute, then another. He wanted to take in his world. He liked checking that every building was still there when he blinked, that a portal wasn’t opening up every time he turned around.
He also had no idea what he wanted to say.
He could feel Gwen fidgeting more than he could see her. There was just nervous energy radiating from his right. She bounced her leg, she fiddled with her hair, she rubbed her hands together. A few days ago, Miles probably would have made fun of her relentlessly for it. Part of him still wanted to.
Yeah, he needed to have this conversation. But man, he didn’t know where to start.
He ran through multiple opening lines in his head, but they all sounded wrong. Too harsh, too forgiving, too silly. But the longer they sat in silence, the worse Gwen’s fidgeting became.
Miles decided plans are kind of overrated anyway.
“You know,” he began, and he could see Gwen’s body go rigid at the sound of his voice in the corner of his vision. “This was my favorite spot in the city to draw.”
Gwen didn’t move, her hands now folded inward upon her lap. Her eyes never left the skyline.
“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.
Miles chuckled.
“Yeah, it is.”
The silence grew between them once again. Miles didn’t want to let it linger, but he couldn’t find the words. To his surprise, Gwen beat him to them.
“I talked to my dad,” she said.
Miles couldn’t tell if she was crying or not by her voice. He didn’t dare check.
“How did that go?”
He heard Gwen draw in a rattling breath before she continued again.
“He’s, uh, he’s not going to be captain.”
Miles had to drop his left hand to the concrete to keep himself from falling off the building.
“He quit. Said that he couldn’t handle the job if it meant he couldn’t have me. He said—”
Gwen’s voice failed her. Miles’ heart panged.
“He said I was the best thing he’s ever done,” she finally finished.
She brought a hand to her face. Miles pretended to not see her wiping her cheeks. Gwen finally tilted her head toward Miles, and he glanced over to make eye contact with her. Her eyes were puffy but clear, like she’d prepared the next words for some time.
“All this time since Peter died, I told myself I wanted to be alone. That I didn’t want anyone who could hurt me, that it was just easier that way,” she began. “And it wasn’t always the best, but I could handle it for that first year or two.”
“But when I found out about canon? About my canon, what being Gwen Stacy means? That it’d be that way for the rest of my life? That even my dad counted? I realized how much I hated the idea of being alone.”
Gwen’s words came quickly, confidently. Miles didn’t dare interrupt her. She finally broke eye contact, looking back out to the pink Brooklyn sky.
“And I got so scared, Miles. I didn’t know what to do. So I hid from him. I ran away from him, I joined Spider Society, and I got a watch. I could go to any universe but my own. It was almost like, if I never saw my dad, he could never hurt me, and he’d never have to get hurt.”
She paused for a second, drawing in another rattling breath.
“And I hurt him anyway. I actually hurt him more than I would have if I’d just talked to him. And even despite that, despite how little I deserved it, he was there for me. And he told me he loved me.”
Gwen finally turned back to Miles, who’d never looked away from her. He swore her eyes were more blue than he even remembered. He remembered why blue was his favorite color.
“I ran away because I thought loving someone, letting them love me, was a curse. I wouldn’t let myself have anything I wanted because I didn’t want it to end badly. But I’m not afraid anymore. I’m not going to let that fear get in the way of someone who means that much to me.”
Miles had the distinct feeling she wasn’t talking about her dad anymore.
He saw Gwen’s eyes start to shine a little, and she turned her head back out to the Brooklyn sky. She closed her eyes, screwing them shut for a few moments before her facial muscles relaxed. She looked peaceful.
“Well,” Miles finally said. “I’m sure he’s happy you could tell him that.”
Miles wasn’t sure he was talking about her dad anymore, either.
Gwen hummed, her lips quirking into the ghost of a smile.
“I hope so,” she said.
She didn’t look at him while she spoke that time. Miles supposed he only noticed because he was still staring at her.
A little voice in his mind resented himself. It told him she’d completely disregarded him, treated him like a pet who’d always be there whenever she felt like it. She’d tried to control his choices, keep him in the dark.
And yet, for the second time in as many trips to this little ledge on Earth-1610, all Miles wanted to do was hold her hand.
How was he supposed to do this?
Miles closed his eyes and told himself to count to three. He started talking on two.
“I’m not the 13-year-old you helped stop Kingpin with,” Miles continued. “Not anymore. I’ve been doing this for almost a year and a half now.”
“I know.”
“It didn’t always feel that way.”
Gwen sighed before she answered.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
Her words choked off. If she had more to say, she let the words die in her chest.
“I know you just wanted to protect me. And I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate that in any way,” Miles said. “But I don’t exactly need training wheels anymore. I managed to handle Miguel’s whole army.”
Gwen finally found her words.
“The last time I was here, on Earth-1610, meant so much to me. You meant so much to me. I’d spent so much time thinking about you and how funny and pure and optimistic you were, and then I show up and all that was still there.”
She sighed.
“It wasn’t that I didn’t think you were gonna grow up, Miles. I’d just gotten so attached to the version of you in my head that I didn’t—I couldn’t—”
Miles closed his eyes.
“I just need you to know that now, okay?” He said. “I will always have your back, and I always want you to have mine, but I know what the stakes are with this suit, what they are for me. I can handle myself.”
Gwen’s eyes were still down in her lap at her twiddling fingers. Miles leaned over and bumped her shoulder with his for a moment.
“Even if you are 15 months older than me.”
Gwen laughed, and she turned to look at Miles.
“You know, that doesn’t feel as significant as it used to.”
Miles gave her a small smile.
“Never felt significant at all to me.”
Miles’ mouth was moving faster than his brain at this point, which was probably for the best.
“Why didn’t you talk to me?”
Okay, maybe it wasn’t for the best.
If his words threw Gwen off, she did an excellent job hiding her reaction to them.
“I did talk to you about my dad.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
Gwen sighed and hung her head, her gaze cast down to her lap. Her fingers started fidgeting again.
“Yeah, I know.”
She didn’t answer for a handful of seconds. Miles refused to take up the airspace himself. And based on Gwen’s body language, the way her chest puffed out a little, Miles could tell she knew it was still her turn.
“I haven’t always had the easiest time being honest with people, Miles. You have this vulnerability, this earnestness that comes to you so naturally. You let the world see how you feel and you don’t care what it thinks, and it’s the quality I love most about you.”
A pause.
“Well, one of them. But the last time I was open with someone, the last time I tried to tell someone how I felt, my dad pointed a gun at me.”
That little bitter voice in Miles’ head hated how much sense that made.
“I’m not saying I don’t want to work on it,” she rushed out. “I do, and you deserve that honesty, but…I’ve been doing this on my own longer than you have. And I think, somewhere along the way, I just decided that I needed to keep doing it that way.”
Miles swallowed hard, the tide of emotion rising in his chest. When he’d first sat on the ledge, he felt like he could never ask enough questions. He thought he’d press her, yell at her, interrogate her, anything that gave him more closure on her actions.
He’d barely spoken. He’d been listening for most of this conversation. And yet, somehow, he didn’t think he could find his old anger even if he looked for it.
He couldn’t help the question that followed.
“Do you still want to keep doing it that way?”
He winced a little internally at how the words sounded. Had he really gotten over it already? He hated feeling desperate.
His mother’s voice rang in his ears.
Not desperate, Miles. Forgiving.
Gwen’s eyes stayed locked on the buildings before her when she answered.
“In every universe, Gwen Stacy falls for Spider-Man,” Gwen said.
Miles noticed her omission from last time.
“And in every other universe, it doesn’t end well.”
The words hung in the air for a second, just as they had days before. They were the same words, said by the same person, in the same spot, to the same person, but they were distinctly different. Miles knew there was more coming.
“But,” Gwen continued, “I’ve never tried before. We’ve never tried before. And that’s what I want to do. I want to try, and if you’ll have it, I want to try with you.”
Miles could feel Gwen’s eyes locked on his right cheek. He didn’t dare turn even a millimeter. He felt himself swallow.
This was what he’d wanted, maybe more than anything else, for almost a year and a half. He couldn’t count on his fingers the number of ways Gwen had confessed her love for him in his dreams and daydreams, the number of places he’d had this conversation with her and the number of ways he’d swept her off her feet in his brain.
And now, here she was. Sitting just inches from him, giving him every opportunity to do just that. Her fingers inched closer to his, dancing around the idea of holding his hand.
All he had to do was jump.
But he knew he couldn’t. Not quite yet. He’d grown to resent that little voice in the back of his head, the one desperate to hurt Gwen as some form of atonement, but he knew he needed to address it. It would only get louder if he didn’t.
Miles sucked in a deep breath. He gripped the edge of the building until his knuckles whitened under his suit, as if his fingers would rebel if he lost focus for even a moment.
“Gwen,” Miles said. “I want to try. You have no idea how badly I want to try, how long I’ve wanted to try.”
He could feel her smile, feel the slight sigh of relief tingle past her lips. He forced himself onward.
“But as much as I want to, as much as I still want to and as much as I know why you did what you did, I can’t pretend I’m not hurt. I can’t pretend you didn’t hurt me.”
It’d taken all of Miles’ willpower to avoid her eye contact before. When Gwen’s eyes fell with his words, however, he felt even worse.
“I understand,” she said. “And I can’t pretend what I did was little.”
She drew her knees to her chest and slunk away from Miles ever so slightly, only an inch or two. She dropped her chin to one of her knees.
“To tell you the truth, in your shoes, I probably wouldn’t want anything to do with me either.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Gwen froze. She swiveled her chin toward Miles, never breaking contact with her knee.
“I just don’t,” Miles started, but he never found the following words. If he was honest with himself, he probably didn’t know what he wanted this to be right now.
Gwen’s legs dropped back next to his.
“I do still want to try—try with you. I just want to slow down for a second,” Miles said softly. He looked over to Gwen. He could have sworn there were flecks of pink in the blue of her eyes now. Had those been there before?
“And I don’t even know exactly what I mean by that. I think I just,” he sighed again. “I need to know that, if there’s something going on with you, you’ll talk to me about it. Okay? I need to know you see this, you see us, as a team.”
Gwen nodded.
“Absolutely,” she said with a grin.
Miles smiled back.
“Then I hope you’re ready for long-distance,” he said.
Miles hadn’t realized how much closer they’d scooted toward each other until he felt his thigh bump hers. He recoiled from the contact for a split second, the unexpected contact surprising him for just a moment, but he immediately dropped his leg down to rest against hers again.
They sat like that for a few moments. Miles felt something tickle his leg and looked down to see Gwen’s left hand sneaking down his right arm and into his palm. She intertwined their fingers.
“I wouldn’t want anything else,” she said softly.
Miles didn’t let her go. They both stared out at the skyline of Brooklyn, his Brooklyn. Safe, for now. Just as they were.
He turned to face her, one final question coming to mind.
“You wore my jacket?” A grin crept across Miles’ face as he remembered his dad’s words earlier.
Gwen laughed, the heartiest giggle he’d ever heard her let out, and she dropped her head onto his shoulder.
“And I fully plan on wearing it again, if I can.”
Miles couldn’t tell if his heart skipped one beat or two.
“I, uh, I think that can be arranged.”
Miles leaned his head to the side, resting his ear on top of Gwen’s head. He could feel every breath she took. Her hand felt warm in his.
“Hey, I, um,” Gwen stammered out after a moment, her cheek soft against his shoulder. “I know you just said you need to slow down, but…I feel like I’ve left a lot unsaid in the past and I don’t want to keep doing that, especially when you’ve been so open with me and so good to me. If it’s too soon or anything, I’m sorry and we can just forget it ever—”
Miles squeezed her palm to end the slew of words.
“What do you want to tell me?”
“I love you, Miles.”
He froze for a moment, mulling the words over. He lost his focus on the buildings before him, and the Brooklyn sunset blurred into a beautiful pink canvas.
“You don’t have to say it ba—”
“I love you, too, Gwen.”
Miles heard her let out a satisfied hum, almost a chuckle. She brought her right hand around and wrapped it around his arm.
Miles never wanted to move again.