Spider-man: The end of all spiders

Chapter 17

Miles didn't know how he felt.

Was he really going to kiss Gwen? I mean, they were just friends, right? Friends don't kiss each other! Miles thought to himself.

They were both swinging through the city. Miles turned to look at Gwen, and he swore he saw her looking back at him for a second, but he didn't think much of it.

"Miles?" Gwen asked without looking at him.

"Yeah?" Miles responded.

"Do you..." She started, but never finished.

"Gwen, we should talk about this after all this."

"Yeah... maybe we should wait..."

"Right"

"Miles... I... I just don't want to lose you..."

At that comment, Miles zipped to a nearby rooftop. Gwen joined him and they both sat down. He just wanted to talk to her, before everything went down.

"Gwen?", Miles asked, but she didn't look at him.

"Gwen, look at me." Miles instructed.

She turned to look at him, and he saw tears in her eyes. He wrapped his arm around her.

"Even if I die, it will be saving all the other spider-people." He said, hoping to comfort her, but she just started silently crying.

Miles didn't really know what to say. He was never really good at pep talks, and he especially didn't want to make Gwen feel worse.

"Hey, we all hurt sometimes.", Miles said hoping to comfort her.

Gwen glanced at him briefly before curling back to a ball, putting her head between her legs. She was still crying.

"Gwen, you have to put your chin up. There will always be something that will cause you to get down, but you can't let it affect you. We are going to beat this guy, and we are going to shut down this machine for good." Miles said, surprised that he spoke such wisdom. He didn't admit it, but he had no idea where that came from.

"I... I don't to lose anyone else. He almost killed you before, and he can do it again.", Gwen said in between sobs.

"I... I promise I won't let anything happen to you.", Miles said. When she didn't say anything, he continued, "I know that you've lost people before. And so have I. But we're still spider-man aren't we? It's a part of the job, and we just have to except that. Even if it means we lose one person, we are still saving thousands of others."

Gwen looked up with tears in her eyes. What she said next surprised Miles.

"I love you, Miles.", she said.

Love? The word rung out in Miles' head. How could she love me? I'm just a dorky dude she met 2 years ago. What is there to love about me? He thought.

But did he love her back? Was this going to turn into an actual relationship? Or were they just friends like they had said over and over again. Miles took a deep breath, and pushed out the words,

"I love you too, Gwen"

Gwen hugged him and put her head in his chest. Miles wrapped his arms around her in a warm embrace. Gwen was still crying, but he could tell it was a mix of sad and happy tears.

They sat there hugging each other for a few more minutes, as a last goodbye of sorts. After all, one of them might die.

Miles realized in those few minutes that he meant what he had said.

He loved Gwen. And nothing could change that.