Chapter 4
Bright lights sweep across the stage. A vacuum of roaring applause. Screeches from the monitors up front. Em Jay’s steady voice in her ear. Sweat drips onto the snare. It’s the first night she’s performing with the Mary Janes and Gwen has never felt more alive.
Somehow, keeping a rhythm allows her to focus solely on the music. Everything else blurs and takes a step back. She feels a little thrill in her chest every time her ears pick out the latest ‘whoop!’ from an audience member and she grins wickedly. Adrenaline thrums through her hands, controlling her movements. She’s letting it all out on this poor, battered drum kit, their band name emblazoned on the front slowly peeling off. She hears Em Jay start shrieking higher and higher, the song’s about to end, their very last set of the night, and she speeds up, laughter almost bubbling out of her. This is so fucking fun.
“Thank you everybody!” Em Jay pants into the microphone. “Go fuck each other tonight.”
All the lights turn down for a brief moment before house lights come up. Gwen grabs the bottle by her feet, crushing the plastic, and gulps the warm water down. Felicia unplugs her guitar from the amp and slings it loosely behind her while crushing Glory to her chest in one fluid movement. Em Jay’s already gone off to have a talk with the sound technician who’d screwed up a couple minor times while mixing their sets. Gwen gives the two girls a hesitant smile before carefully packing up her cymbals.
“Finally popped your performance cherry, Stacy,” Felicia croons. She reaches out to muss up Gwen’s hair and smirks when Gwen bats her hand away.
“Surprised you held your own, Hardy.” Gwen had counted twenty beer cans in the shitty dressing room right before the set started. “You were a walking Bud Lite ad on your way out.”
Glory stifles a chortle. Felicia only rolls her eyes, her trusty Juul already between her lips. “Ride in the van tonight?”
Gwen turns to look at Em Jay, who’s gone from yelling at the sound guy to making out with him in under two minutes flat. She shrugs. “I think I’ll get my own ride, thanks.”
“Where’s Harry?” Glory asks, having followed Gwen’s sightline. Felicia scoffs. “He and Em Jay are taking a break.”
Except clearly they weren’t, as he suddenly appears to yank Em Jay off the audio console. Gwen can hardly stop watching the entertainment. “So what’s up with them?” She asks.
“Last I heard, she got jealous of him flirting with some sorority girl at yesterday’s party,” Glory says. “But I don’t know what’s going on right now.”
Gwen snorts. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees an empty spot at the bar. First time all night. Her legs start taking her there before the words catch up.
“Y’all want anything?”
Glory shakes her head and gets back to packing up her bass amp. Felicia’s attention had flitted away long ago to one of Harry’s friends who’d wandered up onstage and was painfully trying to get her number after weeks of jerking off.
Gwen slides into her spot at the bar and calls the bartender over for a White Russian. Marigold’s working tonight. Nice lady with the coolest sleeves and a sharp tongue. Didn’t question her fake ID the first time Gwen nervously handed it over, only acknowledging it with a sharp ‘tsk’ and the nostalgic smile of a co-conspirator. Someone Gwen could imagine being companionable with if she’d let herself.
It’s no time at all before a dude with curly brown hair and a tight V-neck sidles up to her.
“You’re a pretty good drummer for being a girl,” he flatters, voice smooth like honey. The corners of Gwen’s lips turn slightly upward. This fucking opening line…
“How long have you been playing with them?” He continues.
She shrugs. “First time at this club.”
He smiles and moves in closer. Thinks he has an in now that she’s responded. The urge to roll her eyes is overwhelming.
“I’m Taylor,” he says, rolling the consonants in his mouth. His hand glides up to take hers. Gwen puts a little more force into the handshake than he’s expecting, if the slight creases along his left eye are anything to go by.
“Cool. Don’t know if that name suits you,” she replies. It doesn’t because it isn’t his name. His real name’s Zachary Fields. 23-year-old, self-employed, flies back and forth between Manhattan and Silicon Valley. Bet he feels super special that he founded a tech startup with no college degree.
Gwen’s eyes flit lazily between his face – his grin is way too off-putting – and the details that glare at her, from the ID sticking out of his pocket to the texts lighting up the Stark Phone in his hand. He flies back to San Francisco on a red-eye tomorrow night, according to his calendar, nondescript font on his always-on display. A class ring on his left hand, an insignia of a rich prep school here in the city. She resists a scoff. Of course he’s one of those. Custom cufflinks with the logo of his startup that she recognizes as a new app on offer – yet another one jumping on home kits for DNA testing.
She looks back up at him. He must think she’s checking him out. His right eyebrow quirks up. So practiced. “Aren’t you gonna tell me your name?”
“No, I don’t think so.” She looks at Marigold. Damn all the other customers for taking away her attention. Gwen’s pretty sure she’s just about done with this conversation.
“That’s not really playing fair now, is it?” His eyes gleam. Gwen forces a polite smile on her face.
“Bold of you to assume I’m playing.”
He chuckles. Moves in a little closer. She can smell the cologne on him, the shampoo he showers with, can hear the extremely faint ticking of his expensive watch that he wouldn’t have bought if he’d known it ticks. Yes, she’s done with this fucking conversation.
“It’s rare to find a good drummer. I play a little myself. You seem like a pretty awesome person,” he offers. Gwen does scoff a little now. Like hell he plays. Just look at the baby smoothness of his hands. She hates that she noticed it.
“Thanks.”
She can almost hear all the tactics he’s running through in his mind. Like trying out different pieces of a puzzle. Take it out if it doesn’t fit.
“You know,” he leans his elbows against the bar. “You’re different from all the other girls I meet around here.”
Of course. “How so?” At the back of her mind, she wonders why she’s still feeding him little by little. Why hasn’t she shut this down by now?
He flashes a sharp smile. “There’s just something about you. I really like your type.”
“My type?”
His wrist flicks casually. “Gorgeous, smart, sense of rhythm, some mystery.” Gwen cringes internally. “Total package from the get-go.”
“I see.”
Finally, Marigold’s heading over with her drink. Gwen taps her finger impatiently.
“Maybe we could go for a walk, I’d like to get to know you-”
She grabs her glass from Marigold’s hand and pivots swiftly in one movement, an achingly familiar burn sliding down her throat even before she’s taken her first step out of this conversation. She hears Taylor-Zachary sputter slightly behind her, mid-sentence, as she walks away. She hears the harsh “Hey” that cuts off and morphs into a low whisper, “Be that way, bitch.”
Gwen shakes her head, disappointed at how she handled the situation. What was she expecting to get out of that? An incoming text steals her attention.
“Hey Gwen doll,” it reads. A chill starts at the base of her stomach. “Uncle Miles here. Dinner this weekend?”
A picture of her favorite beef stroganoff recipe follows.
Great. Something else Gwen doesn’t know how to say no to. Can’t say no to.
She shoves her phone in her pocket. She’ll put this off as long as she can.
To avoid being hassled again, she hikes up the stairs to the rooftop, drink in hand. She knows that if she’s discreet about it, club management won’t hassle her. She’s been a regular since she moved nearby. Has helped out with band setup before ever meeting The Mary Janes, has broken up a couple of fights at the bar, walked some of the bartenders home after hours.
She sips from her glass slowly, the world quieting down around her. Alcohol can’t touch her now but she’s glad for the taste all the same. Helps her out when she starts feeling like there’s nothing to go back to.
She knows there isn’t. Not creepy Uncle Miles who touched her wrong that one time and still insists on introducing himself as her “Uncle Miles” every time, whose presence caused such anxiety the weeks she stayed with him after her parents died that all she could do was prepare, prepare, prepare to ace ESU’s entrance exam, to get emancipated, to move out.
Her parents died in a plane crash, along with a hundred others, when the Blip dusted their two pilots and half the people at the command center. In the weeks after, before she knew for sure that the dusting had occurred randomly, Gwen couldn’t stop spiraling about how it could’ve been her, why wasn’t it, why was she saved?
It’s never mattered that she’s aware of her genius-level IQ. Her dad used to brag about it to his coworkers all the time. How did dumb old me get so lucky, huh? Like it mattered. It was always just a number. God, she misses her parents every day. She misses the California heat. The sunsets of her childhood are imprinted on her eyeballs every time she sees the skyline. She’s grown to love New York but it’s not her city, not the way it’s home for Spider-Man. It’ll always be witness to her loss.
The glass is drained empty and Gwen’s more lucid than ever. It’ll be a life of shitty studio apartments and keeping people away. She can never stop keeping people away now that she’s not just Gwen anymore. There’ll forever be something dark and restless beneath her skin, fueling her investigation into Oscorp’s research, endlessly driving her to the lab in fear of her mutation, needing to understand what’s happened to her. How did Peter ever live with this? When will he be pardoned? When will any of them?
Those are the daydreams she’s most afraid of – she can’t control it, but her thoughts occasionally slide to idyll visions of a future where she’s found refuge in people like her. Built a new family up, filled with superhumans who understand in a world that trusts them. It’s a hope that refuses to go away, even when she knows it’ll never happen. How could it? This universe has already been torn apart once. There won’t be a force strong enough to stop it from cracking further. The seams are showing, she knows it. And people are so willing to tear themselves in half. It’s just a fact. Her intelligence is a curse. It won’t fix anything. She knows this.
With a press of her lips, withholding a useless scream, she heads back downstairs. Hauls her things back to her apartment. Settles in under the covers alone. Closes her eyes and wills her body to sleep. She needs to rest. She hopes she dreams of sweet-smelling hands cradling her face, a familiar smile crinkling at the eyes…