As the minutes dragged on, Gwen remained outside the entrance to the building where she worked, occasionally glancing down the sidewalk with a hopeful smile. Every few moments she would check her phone, expecting another message from Peter saying he had been delayed. The smile on her face slowly began to fade as ten minutes turned into twenty, and twenty eventually became thirty. Peter had never been this late before. Even if Spider-Man had been busy, Peter always found a way to send her a quick text. This time... there was nothing.
Biting her lip, Gwen pulled out her phone and scrolled to another contact before pressing the call button.
"Hello?" George Stacy answered after the second ring.
"Hey, Dad..." Gwen said, trying not to sound worried. "Are you able to pick me up from work? Peter was supposed to walk me home, but it's been almost half an hour and he still isn't here. I've tried calling him a few times, but he isn't answering his phone."
George immediately heard the concern in his daughter's voice. "Of course, sweetheart," he replied without hesitation. "Stay right where you are. Don't wait outside by yourself any longer than you have to. I'll be there in a few minutes."
"Thanks, Dad."
"And Gwen?"
"Yeah?"
"If Peter has a good reason, that's one thing... but if he simply forgot..." George let out a small huff. "...I'm going to have a very serious conversation with that boy."
Despite her growing concern, Gwen couldn't help but smile.
"I'll see you soon."
Less than ten minutes later, a familiar NYPD cruiser pulled up to the curb. Gwen climbed into the passenger seat, fastening her seatbelt as George pulled away from the building and began driving toward home. For the first few minutes, neither of them spoke. George could tell something was bothering his daughter far more than she was willing to admit.
Finally, he broke the silence.
"You know," he began, keeping his eyes on the road, "I'm going to wring Peter's neck."
"Dad..."
"No, seriously. He asks my daughter out, promises to walk her home, then leaves her standing alone in the dark for half an hour? That's not how a gentleman behaves."
Gwen immediately shook her head.
"Dad, I'm sure there's a reason. Peter wouldn't just leave me waiting."
George sighed.
"I know he's a good kid, Gwen. But it only takes a few seconds to send a text saying he's running late."
"He probably got caught up with something."
George glanced over at her.
"Like what?"
Gwen opened her mouth to defend Peter again, but no answer came. Even she couldn't explain why he had completely disappeared.
"I... I don't know."
The patrol car continued through the evening traffic as silence settled between them once more. Streetlights flickered on one by one while New York's nightlife began coming alive around them.
Then—
BOOM!!
Something slammed onto the hood of the police cruiser with enough force to make the entire vehicle dip toward the pavement.
George instinctively stomped on the brakes.
SCREEEEEECH!
The cruiser slid several feet before coming to a violent stop in the middle of the street. Gwen cried out as her seatbelt locked, holding her firmly in place.
"What the hell?!" George shouted, already reaching for his service weapon.
Smoke and bits of shattered asphalt drifted through the air as a battered figure slowly rolled off the dented hood and crashed onto the pavement in front of the cruiser.
For a split second, neither George nor Gwen could make out who it was.
Then the streetlights illuminated the familiar red-and-blue suit.
Spider-Man.
His costume was torn in several places, fresh cuts marked his arms and shoulders, and one side of his mask had been sliced open, revealing bruised skin beneath. He pushed himself onto one knee, breathing heavily as if he had been fighting nonstop for the past half hour.
Before George or Gwen could react...
Nearly a dozen black-clad figures landed silently surrounding the car
One after another.
Each of them carried swords, and bundles of shuriken, their eyes fixed solely on the wounded Spider-Man below.
Peter slowly climbed back to his feet, wiping a trail of blood from the corner of his mouth beneath his damaged mask.
Peter looked down at the police cruiser he had crashed onto, his vision swimming slightly from the poison coursing through his body. Through the cracked windshield, he immediately recognized the two people inside.
"Gwen..."
His heart sank.
Gwen stared back at him with wide, terrified eyes, tears already beginning to form as she took in the sight of his battered condition. His suit was ripped in several places, blood dripped steadily from numerous cuts, and one side of his mask had been sliced open. It was the first time she had ever seen Spider-Man look so beaten. Beside her, George Stacy had already unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle, every instinct as both a police captain and a father telling him to get out and help.
Peter's eyes widened.
"No!"
Before George could push the door open, Peter flicked both wrists.
Thwip! Thwip!
Thick strands of webbing shot across both front doors, completely sealing them shut.
"Spider-Man!" George shouted as he shoved against the door. "What the hell are you doing?!"
Peter looked directly at Gwen through the windshield for only a brief second before speaking.
"Stay... in the car."
Without another word, he spun around just as the first assassin lunged toward him. Peter ducked beneath the flashing blade and drove his elbow into the ninja's ribs before following it with a devastating uppercut that launched the assassin several feet into the air. Another came from behind, but Peter's spider-sense warned him just in time. He backflipped over the incoming sword, fired two strands of webbing, and slammed the attacker into a nearby streetlight.
The remaining assassins attacked all at once.
Shuriken flew through the air while swords flashed beneath the streetlights. Despite the poison dulling his reflexes, Peter continued moving almost instinctively. He swung between lamp posts, bounced off parked cars, and used his webbing to yank weapons from their hands. One assassin was kicked through a bus stop, another was wrapped head to toe in webbing before being slammed into a brick wall, while two more found themselves tangled together after Peter intentionally crossed his web lines.
Inside the police cruiser, Gwen watched in horror as Spider-Man fought what looked like an entire squad of highly trained killers by himself.
"Dad, we have to help him!"
George pulled against the webbed door again, but it refused to budge.
"We can't! He's sealed us inside!"
The shadows behind peter moved.
Another assassin emerged almost silently from the darkness, having concealed himself throughout the entire fight. Unlike the others, he didn't charge recklessly. He patiently waited until Spider-Man was distracted finishing off another opponent.
Peter's spider-sense screamed at him.
He tried to turn.
His body refused.
The poison had spread too far.
SHNK!
The assassin's katana drove straight through Peter's side, the blade bursting out the other side of his torso.
"SPIDER-MAN!!" Gwen screamed.
Time seemed to stop.
Peter's eyes widened in pain as blood dripped from the end of the blade onto the pavement below. His grip loosened for only a fraction of a second before his expression hardened.
"You..." he growled through gritted teeth.
With a roar of pain, Peter grabbed the sword with one hand, ignoring the blood pouring from his palm. Before the stunned assassin could react, Peter spun around and drove a brutal punch directly into the man's chest.
BOOM!
The impact launched the ninja through the side of a parked delivery truck, crumpling the metal around him before he collapsed unconscious.
Peter staggered forward, breathing heavily. His vision blurred as the poison continued attacking his nervous system, but he forced himself to stay standing. Looking around, he saw the remaining assassins beginning to recover.
"...Not... happening..."
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Thwip!
Web after web covered the street as Peter rapidly cocooned every remaining assassin together into one massive ball of reinforced webbing. Within seconds, more than a dozen League of Shadows ninjas were completely immobilized, struggling uselessly as the web tightened around them.
The distant sound of approaching police sirens echoed through the streets.
Peter looked toward the cruiser one last time.
Through the windshield, Gwen stared back at him, tears streaming down her face as she silently begged him not to leave.
Peter wanted nothing more than to tell her he was okay.
But he knew he wasn't.
If she saw the wound... if George got close enough to examine him... everything would fall apart.
With one final web shot, Peter pulled the sword from his body, barely suppressing a cry of pain as fresh blood soaked his suit. He snapped the blood-covered blade in half and discarded it before firing a web toward the nearest skyscraper.
"I'm... sorry..." he whispered so quietly that only he could hear it.
A moment later, he disappeared into the night.
Less than a minute later, dozens of NYPD cruisers flooded the intersection. Officers rushed toward the scene with weapons drawn before quickly realizing the attackers were already unconscious and completely wrapped in Spider-Man's webbing. Several officers cut through the web sealing George's cruiser, finally allowing him and Gwen to climb out.
George immediately took command.
"Cuff every one of them!" he ordered. "Search them for weapons! Get EMS down here now!"
As the officers began handcuffing the webbed assassins, Gwen paid no attention to the chaos around her.
Her hands trembled as she pulled out her phone.
She called Peter.
Straight to voicemail.
"No..."
She called again.
Voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
Over and over, she kept dialing his number, desperately hoping he would answer.
"Come on, Peter..." she whispered through tears. "Please... just answer..."
Peter's phone continued vibrating inside the torn remains of his suit as he swung through the dark New York skyline. Every few seconds it buzzed again, filling the quiet night with the same familiar ringtone. He didn't need to look at the screen to know who it was. It was Gwen. She had probably seen the fight on the news by now, and after watching Spider-Man get impaled before disappearing, she was undoubtedly terrified. Peter wanted nothing more than to answer the call and tell her he was okay, but he knew the moment she heard how weak his voice sounded, she would come looking for him.
"I'm sorry..." he whispered weakly as the phone buzzed yet again.
His vision continued to blur as the poison spread through his body. Every swing became slower than the last, and more than once he nearly missed grabbing his next webline. Blood dripped from the wound in his side, leaving small crimson drops falling toward the streets hundreds of feet below. By the time he finally reached his neighborhood, he was barely conscious. He landed awkwardly in the backyard before stumbling around to the side of the house where the old basement entrance was hidden beneath a small overhang.
Peter fumbled with the handle for several seconds before finally managing to pull the door open. breathing heavily as his phone buzzed once more. With trembling fingers, he pulled it from his pocket. The lock screen was filled with missed calls and messages from Gwen. His thumb hovered over the answer button for a long moment before he slowly locked the screen again.
He stripped out of what remained of the Spider-Man suit until he was left wearing only his boxers. The costume was soaked with blood, torn almost beyond recognition, and littered with cuts from blades and shuriken. Tossing it into a corner, Peter crawled over to his workbench and reached underneath it, pulling out a well-stocked medical kit.
Sitting on the cold concrete floor, he clenched his jaw as he disinfected every cut across his body. The antiseptic burned like fire against the open wounds, but he forced himself to keep going. He stitched the deeper gash in his side as best he could, wrapped thick bandages around his torso, shoulder, and forearm, and finally injected himself with an anti-inflammatory to help keep the swelling down. It wasn't enough to counteract the poison, but it would at least keep him functioning until morning—if he made it that far.
When he finally finished, Peter could barely keep his eyes open.
He slowly stood, using the workbench for support, before taking the few short steps to his bed. The moment he let himself fall backward onto the mattress, every muscle in his body relaxed. Exhaustion immediately overtook him, and within seconds he was fast asleep, his phone still resting on the bedside table as it silently displayed yet another missed call from Gwen.
Meanwhile, back at the scene of the fight, flashing red-and-blue lights continued to illuminate the entire intersection. Crime scene investigators photographed every inch of the street while officers loaded the unconscious ninjas into waiting police transport vans. George Stacy spent nearly an hour giving his statement to detectives, explaining everything he and Gwen had witnessed from inside the patrol car. Gwen answered their questions as best she could, though her mind was somewhere else entirely. Every answer felt automatic. All she could think about was the image of Spider-Man being run through by that sword.
Eventually, the questioning ended, and George drove them home in silence.
As soon as they walked through the front door, Gwen forced a tired smile.
"Dad... I'm exhausted. I think I'm just going to go to bed."
George looked at his daughter for a moment before nodding.
"Alright, sweetheart. Try to get some sleep."
"I'll try."
She walked upstairs, stepped into her bedroom, and quietly closed the door behind her.
The instant the latch clicked shut, the smile disappeared from her face.
She paced back and forth across her room, repeatedly checking her phone. Still no answer from Peter. Every scenario imaginable raced through her mind. Maybe he really had forgotten. Maybe his phone had died. Maybe he had been mugged. Or maybe...
She stopped herself before finishing that thought.
Nearly an hour passed.
The house eventually grew quiet as she heard her parents head to their bedroom for the night. She waited another fifteen minutes just to be sure before quietly opening her bedroom window. Cool night air drifted into the room as she climbed through the opening and carefully stepped onto the metal fire escape. Moving as quietly as possible, she descended the stairs before breaking into a run the moment her feet touched the sidewalk.
an hour later, Gwen arrived outside the Parker house. She hurried up the front steps and knocked repeatedly on the front door.
A few moments later, the door opened.
MJ stood there wearing an oversized t-shirt and pajama pants, clearly surprised to see Gwen standing there so late at night.
"Gwen?" MJ asked. "What are you doing here? It's almost midnight."
"I need to see Peter," Gwen answered immediately, breathing hard from the run. "It's important."
MJ frowned.
"He isn't home yet."
Without saying another word, Gwen brushed past her and stepped inside.
"Gwen!" MJ called after her.
"I have to check something."
Gwen hurried through the house toward the basement staircase. Just as she reached the first step, MJ caught up with her.
"Hold on!"
Gwen turned around.
"I'm sorry, MJ... but this is private."
She placed a hand on the basement doorknob.
"I need you to stay upstairs."
Before either of them could say another word, the television in the living room interrupted them.
"...New developments tonight after Spider-Man was involved in a violent confrontation with a group of unidentified armed assailants believed to have extensive combat training..."
Both girls froze.
The camera switched to footage taken by witnesses showing Spider-Man battling the masked ninjas in the middle of the street.
"...Eyewitnesses report that Spider-Man sustained multiple injuries during the encounter before apparently being stabbed through the torso. Despite his condition, he managed to incapacitate every attacker before escaping the scene moments before police arrived..."
MJ's eyes slowly widened.
She looked from the television...
To the basement door...
Then back to Gwen.
"...You're here because of Peter."
Gwen slowly nodded.
MJ let out a long sigh.
"I'm coming with you."
Gwen blinked.
"...What?"
MJ folded her arms.
"I know why you're here."
"You... do?"
"I know Peter is Spider-Man."
For several seconds, Gwen simply stared at her in complete disbelief.
"You... know?"
MJ nodded slowly.
"One morning a few weeks ago, I looked out my bedroom window because I heard something outside. I saw Peter climbing into his rooms window wearing the full Spider-Man suit. He thought nobody was watching."
Gwen was speechless.
"You never told anyone?"
"No."
"Why?"
MJ looked toward the basement door before answering quietly.
"Because... I didn't know how I felt about it."
Gwen and MJ stood silently at the top of the basement stairs, neither of them saying another word. The only sound in the house was the television continuing its late-night coverage of Spider-Man's battle, though neither girl was listening anymore. They looked at one another for a brief moment before Gwen slowly turned the doorknob.
The old wooden stairs creaked softly beneath their feet as they descended into the dimly lit basement.
With each step, Gwen's heart pounded harder.
Please don't let me be right...
Please let him just be out somewhere...
The basement was illuminated by a single lamp sitting on Peter's workbench. The room looked exactly how it always had—tools neatly hanging on the walls, science books stacked in small piles, notebooks filled with equations scattered across the desk, and various school projects sitting on shelves. Nothing appeared out of place...
Until Gwen's eyes drifted toward the corner of the room.
She froze.
Peter was asleep on his small bed.
He was lying on his back, wearing nothing but a pair of black boxers. Thick white bandages were wrapped tightly around his chest, his shoulder, his forearm, and most noticeably around the right side of his abdomen where the sword had pierced him. Small crimson stains had already begun bleeding through the fresh bandages despite his attempts to stop the wound. His face was pale, his breathing noticeably slower than normal, and dried blood still stained parts of his arms and neck that he had been too exhausted to clean properly.
For several long seconds...
Neither Gwen nor MJ moved.
"...Peter..." Gwen whispered.
Her legs gave out beneath her.
She stumbled forward before dropping to her knees beside the bed, tears instantly filling her eyes. One trembling hand reached toward him before stopping just inches above his bandaged side, terrified that even the slightest touch would hurt him.
"Oh my God..."
Her voice cracked.
"You idiot..."
A tear rolled down her cheek before falling onto the blanket covering Peter's legs.
"You said you'd come get me..."
Peter didn't respond.
He remained completely motionless, the exhaustion from blood loss, poison, and the fight keeping him deeply asleep.
MJ stood a few feet away, her own eyes widening as she finally took in the full extent of his injuries.
Although she had known the truth for weeks, seeing Peter like this made it real in a way she hadn't been prepared for.
Her eyes slowly wandered across the basement.
Peter's torn Spider-Man suit lay discarded in the corner of the room. The once vibrant red-and-blue fabric had been shredded by blades, covered in dirt, and stained dark with dried blood. His mask rested beside it, the right side sliced nearly in half where one of the ninja's attacks had torn through it. Sitting on the workbench nearby was an open medical kit along with bloody gauze, used needles, surgical thread, antiseptic bottles, and blood-soaked bandages that had clearly been used only minutes earlier.
After a few more minutes of making sure Peter's breathing remained steady, MJ decided there wasn't much else she could do. She quietly told Gwen that she would keep Aunt May from coming downstairs if she woke up, then headed back upstairs, leaving the two of them alone. Gwen remained sitting beside Peter for several minutes, watching his chest slowly rise and fall beneath the bandages until the exhaustion from the night finally began catching up with her.
Carefully, Gwen slipped off her shoes and crawled into the bed beside him, making sure not to put any pressure on his injured side. She gently rested her head against the uninjured portion of his chest and wrapped one arm loosely around him. The steady thump... thump... thump of Peter's heartbeat immediately helped ease the fear that had been consuming her all night. After seeing him stabbed through the body only hours earlier, simply hearing his heart beating beneath her ear was enough to finally make her relax.
"You're such an idiot, Peter Parker..." Gwen whispered sleepily, closing her eyes.
She listened to his heartbeat for several more minutes before exhaustion finally won. Her breathing gradually became slower until she fell asleep curled against him, one hand resting lightly against his chest. Neither of them moved for the remainder of the night, and for the first time since the attack, the basement became completely peaceful.
When Peter finally woke the next morning, the first thing he noticed was that his entire body hurt. The second thing he noticed was the blonde head resting against his chest.
His eyes slowly widened.
"...Gwen?"
For a moment, Peter wondered whether he was still unconscious and dreaming. Then Gwen shifted slightly in her sleep, snuggling closer against him as she quietly breathed against his chest. Peter looked down at her before glancing toward the basement stairs, immediately putting together what must have happened.
"Of course you came looking for me," he whispered with a small smile.
Peter didn't wake her.
Instead, he remained exactly where he was, letting Gwen sleep while he stared at the ceiling. After everything that had happened, he knew she probably hadn't slept much before finding him. His hand slowly moved toward her hair, and he gently ran his fingers through the blonde strands. Gwen made a quiet noise in her sleep but didn't wake, instead relaxing further against him.
Peter smiled.
For nearly twenty minutes, he simply lay there playing with her hair and enjoying the unusual peace. Eventually, however, his eyes drifted toward the workbench across the basement. Sitting beneath the lamp were several electronic components, pieces of fabric, lenses, and other parts he had been collecting throughout the previous week.
Peter sighed.
"Right... the suit."
Moving carefully, Peter slipped one arm beneath Gwen's head and gently lifted her just enough to slide himself out from underneath her. He lowered her head onto his pillow and pulled the blanket over her shoulders. His wounds protested immediately when he stood, especially the injury in his side, but his enhanced healing had already started working. The wound was still painful, though nowhere near as bad as it had been the night before.
Peter walked over to the workbench wearing nothing but his boxers and bandages before sitting down in the old chair.
Spread across the table were the beginnings of his new Spider-Man suit.
His first costume had worked well enough for the month and a half he'd been Spider-Man, but the fight with the ninjas had exposed several weaknesses. During the past week, Peter had been visiting junkyards, secondhand electronics stores, and anywhere else he could find cheap components. Most people would have seen broken cameras, discarded phones, damaged circuit boards, and useless electronic scraps.
Peter saw possibilities.
He picked up the partially completed mask.
One of the biggest improvements was the eyes. Peter had constructed a mechanical lens system inside the mask that responded to subtle movements around his eyes. When Peter narrowed his eyes, the white lenses narrowed with them. When his eyes widened, the lenses expanded. It wasn't necessary for fighting crime, but Peter liked being able to make the otherwise expressionless mask feel more alive.
Plus...
It looked cool.
"Very important superhero technology," Peter whispered seriously to himself.
He set the mask aside and reached toward another project.
Since Peter's webbing came naturally from his wrists, he had never needed mechanical web-shooters. However, after fighting groups of criminals over the past month, he had realized that simply firing individual webs wasn't always efficient. If ten people attacked him at once, he wanted something capable of restraining several of them simultaneously.
That had led to his newest idea.
Sitting on the workbench were several small spherical devices, each slightly larger than a marble. Peter had carefully filled them with portions of his own organic webbing before sealing them inside lightweight casings. The mechanism inside was pressure-sensitive. Once the ball struck something hard enough, the casing would release and the compressed webbing inside would rapidly expand outward.
In theory, Peter could throw one into the middle of a group of criminals—
POP.
—and suddenly everyone nearby would be covered in webbing.
"Web grenade?" Peter muttered as he examined one. "No. That sounds way too violent."
He thought for another second.
"Web bomb?"
Peter grimaced.
"Somehow worse."
He placed it back onto the table.
"I'll name you later."
Behind him, Gwen slowly began waking.
She instinctively reached across the mattress, expecting to feel Peter beside her, only for her hand to touch an empty pillow.
Her eyes immediately snapped open.
"Peter?"
For half a second, panic shot through her.
Then she heard the faint sound of metal touching metal from across the basement.
Gwen sat up, clutching the blanket around herself as she looked toward the workbench.
There was Peter.
Bandages covered much of his torso while he hunched over the desk, completely focused on whatever he was building. One eye was pressed against a large magnifying lens while he carefully held a tiny soldering iron against several components on a miniature circuit board.
Gwen stared at him.
Last night, she had watched him get stabbed through the body.
Now he was sitting there doing electronics.
She didn't know whether she wanted to kiss him or strangle him.
Peter carefully positioned another connection.
"Almost..."
The soldering iron slipped.
ZZT!
"OW!"
Peter immediately jerked backward and shook his hand rapidly through the air.
"Hot! Hot! Hot! Why do I keep doing that?!"
Gwen couldn't stop herself.
She started laughing.
Peter froze.
Very slowly, he turned his head toward the bed.
Gwen was sitting there with messy hair and an amused smile on her face, though the relief in her eyes was impossible to miss.
"...Morning," Peter said awkwardly.
Gwen crossed her arms.
"Good morning."
Peter glanced at the soldering iron.
Then at his bandages.
Then back at Gwen.
"I can explain."
Gwen raised an eyebrow.
"You got stabbed through the stomach last night, disappeared without telling me where you were going, ignored about fifty phone calls, stitched yourself back together, and now I wake up to find you half-naked building electronics."
Peter opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then nodded.
"...Okay, when you say it like that, it sounds bad."
"It is bad, Peter."
Peter gave her a sheepish smile.
"But on the bright side..."
He held up the tiny circuit board.
"...the mask can squint now."
Gwen stared at him for several seconds.
Then she grabbed Peter's pillow and threw it directly at his head.
The pillow smacked Peter directly in the face, knocking the tiny circuit board from his hand and sending it safely onto the workbench. Peter slowly pulled the pillow away and stared at Gwen, who was sitting upright in his bed with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. The amusement that had been on her face only moments earlier had disappeared, replaced by an expression Peter knew well enough to recognize immediately.
"Gwen?"
"You need to stop."
Peter blinked. "Stop getting shocked? Because I completely agree. I'm starting to think this soldering iron has some kind of personal—"
"I'm talking about Spider-Man, Peter."
That wiped the smile from his face.
Gwen pushed the blanket away and climbed out of bed before walking toward him. Her eyes drifted across the thick bandages wrapped around his chest and stomach, and for a moment she could see last night's fight all over again. Peter being surrounded. Peter slowing down. The sword going completely through his body. Then him disappearing while she screamed after him.
"You've only been doing this for a month and a half," Gwen said quietly. "A month and a half, Peter, and last night I watched someone put a sword through you. Then instead of getting help, you ran home, ignored every call I made, stitched yourself up, and went to sleep like that was somehow normal."
Peter lowered his eyes.
"Gwen—"
"No." She stepped closer. "Do you have any idea what last night was like for me? I knew that was you fighting those people. I knew that was you bleeding all over the street. And when that sword went through you..." Her voice cracked slightly, forcing her to stop for a moment. "I thought I watched my boyfriend die right in front of me."
Peter's expression softened immediately.
"Gwen..."
She reached out and gently placed her hand against his chest, careful to avoid the bandages.
"I know why you became Spider-Man. I know you want to help people, and I love that about you. But there are police officers. There are firefighters. Theres the justice league." She looked directly into his eyes. "There is only one Peter Parker and your only ."
Peter remained silent.
"So I'm asking you..." Gwen continued. "Please give it up."
Peter looked toward the damaged Spider-Man suit lying in the corner.
For several seconds, he didn't answer.
"I can't."
Gwen's hand dropped from his chest.
"Peter—"
"Uncle Ben told me something before he died." Peter's voice became quieter. "He told me that with great power comes great responsibility."
Gwen stopped.
Peter stared down at his hands.
"I have these powers, Gwen. I can lift cars. I can climb walls. I can sense danger before it happens. I can cross half the city faster than an ambulance can get through traffic." He looked back at her. "How am I supposed to have all of that and then just sit at home when someone is screaming for help?"
"But you're not responsible for everyone."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Peter didn't immediately answer.
Gwen sighed and sat down on the edge of his workbench.
"Because sometimes it feels like you think every bad thing that happens in New York is somehow your responsibility."
Peter stared at the floor.
Maybe she had a point.
He had only been Spider-Man for about six weeks, yet somehow it already felt strange imagining himself hearing sirens and simply ignoring them. Every time he saw someone in danger, there was always that thought in the back of his mind.
I can help.
And if he could help but chose not to...
What did that make him?
Peter eventually reached forward and took Gwen's hands.
"Okay."
Gwen looked surprised.
"...Okay?"
"I'll meet you halfway."
Peter glanced toward his unfinished suit.
"One week."
Gwen frowned slightly. "What?"
"I'll stop being Spider-Man for one week."
Peter stood and carefully moved closer to her.
"No patrols. No swinging around looking for trouble. No Spider-Man. For seven days, I'll just be Peter Parker."
Gwen searched his face.
"And after that?"
Peter took a slow breath.
"If nothing out of the ordinary happens—if New York gets along perfectly fine without Spider-Man—then..."
His eyes briefly moved toward the red-and-blue mask sitting on his workbench.
"...I'll give it up."
Gwen's eyes widened.
"For good?"
Peter hesitated.
That was far harder to say.
Finally, he nodded.
"For good."
Gwen stared at him for several seconds as if trying to determine whether he actually meant it.
"You promise?"
Peter squeezed her hands.
"I promise. One week. If nothing happens that proves Spider-Man needs to exist, I'm done."
Gwen immediately wrapped her arms around him.
Peter winced.
"Ow—ow—stab wound!"
"Oh!"
Gwen instantly released him.
"Sorry!"
Peter laughed despite the pain.
"It's okay."
Gwen carefully hugged him again, this time making sure to avoid his injured side. Peter wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin against the top of her head.
Neither of them knew whether Peter's promise would survive the week.
But for Gwen, it was enough that he was willing to try.
Then her phone started ringing.
Gwen froze.
Peter looked down at her pocket.
"Who's that?"
Gwen pulled out her phone.
Her face immediately went pale.
Mom
"Oh no."
Peter raised an eyebrow.
"What?"
Gwen slowly looked up at him.
"My parents think I'm asleep in my bedroom."
Peter's eyes widened.
"Oh."
The phone continued ringing.
"Ohhh."
Gwen quickly answered.
"Hello?"
"Gwendolyne Stacy!"
Gwen immediately pulled the phone slightly away from her ear.
Even Peter heard that.
"Hi, Mom..."
"Where are you?!"
Her mother's voice wasn't angry so much as terrified.
"I went into your room this morning and you were gone! Your window was open, your father is checking the entire building!"
Gwen closed her eyes.
"I'm okay, Mom."
"Where are you?"
"I'm at Peter's house."
There was silence.
Peter slowly grimaced.
That somehow sounded worse when spoken aloud.
"Peter Parker's house?" her mother asked.
"Yes."
"Why are you at Peter house this early in the morning?!"
Gwen glanced at the clock.
Then at the bed.
Then at Peter standing beside her wearing nothing except boxers and several layers of bandages.
"...There is a completely reasonable explanation for this."
Peter silently shook his head.
There absolutely was not.
"I was worried about him," Gwen continued quickly. "He wasn't answering his phone last night, so I came over to make sure he was okay."
"You climbed out of your bedroom window in the middle of the night and crossed the city by yourself?!"
Gwen winced.
"When you put it like that..."
"Gwen!"
"Sorry!"
Her mother's voice softened slightly, though the worry remained.
"Sweetheart, after everything that happened last night, we woke up and found our daughter missing. Your father nearly called every police officer in New York."
Gwen immediately felt guilty.
"I'm sorry, Mom. I should've left a note or called you. I wasn't thinking."
"No, you weren't."
Peter leaned closer and whispered, "Tell her I'll bring you home."
Gwen nodded.
"Peter's going to walk me home."
There was another pause.
Then her mother's voice became noticeably colder.
"Peter is there?"
Gwen looked directly at him.
Peter suddenly didn't look quite as confident.
"...Yes."
"Good."
Gwen swallowed.
"Why is that good?"
"Because your father would like to speak with him."
Peter's eyes widened.
Gwen slowly lowered the phone from her ear and gave him an apologetic smile.
"Dad wants to talk to you."