A Fresh Start
“First things first, you need to be enrolled in school so you can finish out your senior year.” Peter said, passing over the enrollment papers to Gwen. They were in a little cafe that had just opened up and was already buzzing with life.
“I don’t really see the point.” Gwen said with a sigh, even as she took the papers from him. “In my world it was July, here its only December.”
“I know, but if you really don’t want to go back to your world, then you need to build a life for yourself in this one. That starts with finishing out your senior year and graduating high school, no matter how repetitive it is.”
She groaned and sipped at her latte. “Fine. But listen, there’s been a setback. I when to the Sanctum and Strange is gone. The cleaners have no idea where he went. Supposedly he’s just vanished, been gone for over a week. We’re on our own.”
“Great.” Peter ground out. He wasn’t disappointed, there was hardly any room for hope left in his heart to begin with, even less room for disappointment.
“It’s fine.” Gwen insisted. “We’ll figure this out. It wasn’t very likely that Strange would have given us anything in any case. But, there is some good news. I wrote to Pepper Potts, the CEO of Stark Industries and asked her to send us some money, you know a fellow hero who fought beside her and her husband and she sent us this.” She pulled a check from her bag and slid it across the table.
One hundred grand, overly generous. “Great.” Peter repeated, though his heart still wasn’t really in it. “You can buy yourself some clothes, maybe a laptop.”
“Yes, I suppose it will be nice to be able to wear something besides your overlarge nerd t-shirts. But I was thinking more about the research possibilities with this sort of funding.” Gwen said. “I also need to make myself a new suit since I wasn’t wearing mine when I got zapped here.”
“Right, I actually have something that might be able to help with that.” Peter said, standing from the little table. Gwen rose with him. It was less than a five minute walk back to the apartment they now shared. Peter had done his best to set up the second bedroom for her with the limited things he had, but she was in desperate need of an upgrade.
He led her past her bedroom and his to the third, much smaller bedroom at the end of the hall. He pushed open the door and stood aside for her to enter. Flicking on the light switch he showed her the piece of Stark tech he had used to make his suits. It had been severely damaged when Happy’s apartment had been destroyed, but he had managed to repair it back to nearly full functionality.
He quickly showed her how it worked and then left her to design whatever she wanted.
It was several hours before Gwen emerged from the room, clad in a black, white and purple suit. It was very similar in design to the models Tony had left in there for Peter, aside from a white hood Gwen had added on. “Won’t the hood get in the way of visibility?” He asked her, passing over some of the ramen he had made for himself.
She shook her head. “This suit is practically the same as the one I had back home, this one’s just a little bit more technologically advanced. I’ve never had any issues with the hood before.” She spooned some of the ramen into her mouth and then said, “It’s funny though, my Peter asked the same thing. He was convinced it would get in the way.”
Stealing himself, Peter asked, “How did he die?” He knew it was a rude question, but he wanted to know, out of everything what had brought the end to this alternate version of himself.
Gwen pushed down her hood and pulled off her mask, swallowing hard. “The, uh, the Green Goblin- Peter’s best friend, Harry, went a little mad. He wanted Peter dead and he wanted to hurt… me. He grabbed Peter and flew him up a hundred feet into the air, above a clock tower. Then he dropped him. I got there and caught him but we were trapped in the clock tower with Harry. Peter fell and I dove after him. My webs reached him and I caught myself on a side ledge of the clock tower, but it was too late, the web was too long and he was too close to the ground. He broke his neck when he hit.”
“I’m sorry.” Peter said. “My aunt, I told you she was killed. It was the Green Goblin who got her too.”
“I hope you killed him for it.” Gwen said, setting down the spoon and meeting Peter’s eyes.
Peter shook his head. “I wanted to. One of the other Peter’s that was here stopped me. We cured him instead.”
Gwen sighed and gave a sad little laugh. “Well then you’re a better person than me.”
“Did you kill Harry?” Peter asked.
Gwen nodded. “Publicly. Right in the middle of Times Square. He wasn’t suited up either. He just looked like an innocent bystander and I swooped in and used a web to choke the life out of him. Everyone thought I had just gone and murdered a random guy and then of course people started to think I had been the one to kill Peter too, since he was found hanging off of my webs in the clock tower later that night. It was a mess, the police were after me, the FBI was after me and about a dozen other organizations wanted me dead too. There was nothing I could do to help anyone while on the run from the police and I knew it was only a matter of time before the FBI figured out that I was the one behind the mask. That’s why I was glad for this, ending up in your world, it meant I could have a fresh start.”
“I’m glad that at least one good thing came from all of this mess.” Peter said softly, “You deserve a fresh start.”