Back in school, Miles Morales was listening to one of his teacher's lectures, raising his hand to answer whatever questions were thrown his way, when his own spider-sense went into overdrive; this was no ordinary threat.
Gwen... she's in danger.
"Uh, miss?" He raised his hand abruptly, and all heads turned to him. "May I go to the bathroom, please?"
The teacher, barely acknowledging the student, gave him the lazy handwave. "Go ahead."
Taking his bag, he exited the classroom while bumping a few desks and paced down the crowded hallway into a bathroom where there were thankfully no other people inside. Locking himself in a cubicle, he zipped open his bag on the toilet to take out his very own goober.
When he activated it, the first person he decided to contact was Peter.
"Miles, what's up?" His holographic face popped up instantly and sensed his agitation.
"It's Gwen..." Miles answered, panting. "... she's in trouble."
Peter didn't need to argue. "We're on our way." he avowed.
When his communicator went off again, Miles leaned against a wall, his mind racing with the worst possible scenarios. Holding his chest, he exercised deep breaths to avoid panicking.
"She's Gwen..." he huffed, "... she can hold her own."
*****
Down in the sewers, Spider-Woman was on the defensive. The echoes were filled with mad laughter as the Green Goblin, the most feared foe of any Spider-Man, threw a barrage of attacks her way, many of which missed while a few others connected.
"DODGE, DODGE, DODGE!" jeered the green supervillain.
With his blade, he slashed at her, each swing faster and more precise than the last.
"T-That all you got!?" Gwen taunted shakily, bobbing and weaving.
She knocked him back with her own set of blows. Her punches and kicks bounced off the walls, which sounded like gunshots. She was grunting animalistically, a mix of fear and fury... she wanted to end this threat... needed to end this nightmare.
"STRONGER... THAN YOU... LOOK!" The Goblin stumbled back, clutching his bloodied face.
"There's more where that came from!" she growled back, surging with adrenaline.
When the Goblin made another swift hand motion, Gwen's spider-sense kicked in again. She saw in slow motion three bat-like projectiles jetting towards her with bladed wings... they were fast even in this mode.
Leaping backwards, she twirled in the air, her arms spread, to avoid the first two... but when she landed, the third one grazed her upper side and drew blood.
Yelling in pain, she staggered while clutching the new wound; it wasn't deep enough to be critical, but the pain was sharp enough to pause her for a moment. Time froze for her, but not because of her tingle... because of her thoughts and feelings... her anxiety... the hairs on her goosebumps threatening to pierce through her suit.
Am I going to die here?
She charged at her enemy, determined to block out that dreadful inner voice. The Goblin, grinning again, slashed her with his melee blade again... this time, he drew some more blood from the Spider, her lack of concentration being the main cause.
Am I about to become another canon event?
Regaining distance, she panted while checking her wounds; they were all bigger than the first, all over her arms, legs, and torso, but they still weren't lethal enough to cause any issues... but she could only wonder how long that would last; if she wasn't careful, her friends and family would have to bury her in several caskets.
Dad...
Miles...
The first thing that crossed her mind was the fear of losing those two, but the next one that followed was worse... the fear of leaving them behind. She pictured her dad especially, standing at her grave dressed in black, impossibly alone...
"No..."
She imagined him returning to an empty home with no one to love or console him...
"No..."
Him staring lifelessly at the walls of his claustrophobic apartment...
"No!"
Him pressing the barrel of his gun against his own temple... and pulling the trigger...
"NO!"
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU BLABBERING ON ABOUT!?" The Goblin was watching her, his head cocked to the side curiously. "I BARELY SCRATCHED YOU! EVEN I CAN SEE THAT!"
"You... call these... scratches?" She raised her head, now glaring daggers at this monster.
I will NOT die here!
NOT in this sewer!
NOT anywhere!
And NOT to him... not this time!
Regaining her stance, she closed her eyes and inhaled. Her heart slowed down, no longer ramming her chest, as she then pictured her kickdrum, her spinning sticks, and Miles' heart, as well as her own, all beating to the same rhythm.
When she opened them again, her fear dissipated. She now glared at her foe with fiery conviction; she was going to take him down, and she wasn't going to die trying.
"THIS IS MY HOME!" she cried out. "THIS IS MY STORY! THE ONLY PERSON WHO DECIDES HOW IT ENDS IS ME!" She then pointed to the stunned Goblin. "AND YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE!"
The Green Goblin threw his head back and cackled once more... when he glitched.
Falling to his knees, he grabbed his stomach and vomited red contents into the water like a faucet. Gwen reeled back in disgust before doing a double take to see what it was... blood.
"Uh... you okay?" she asked sarcastically. "You're not looking too hot."
"DON'T... MOCK ME, GIRL!" He dry heaved before vomiting some more.
"You really should go home." stated the Spider dryly. "Not that I care."
"I... WILL... KILL... YOU... ALL!" he rasped through his teeth while struggling back to his feet.
He then opened a black portal behind him, and out flew his glider. He ducked as it sped towards her, its thrusters screaming. Gwen, however, saw this coming from a mile away and vaulted over it. When it made a U-turn with its blades out, she backflipped over it.
When her heightened reflexes saw the Goblin hopping back onto his glider, clearly to make his getaway, she fired two web-lines onto the contraption and launched herself to him. "No, you don't!" she shouted as she sent him through the black hole with a web-assisted dropkick.
For a split-second, they wrestled in pure darkness, and then a warm light washed over them. Gwen got a bearing of her surroundings and realized they were back outside in the sunlit streets.
"I AM SICK OF YOU ALL TRYING TO HOG MY GLIDER!" screamed the Goblin, trying to push her off. "IT ISN'T DESIGNED FOR TWO!"
"Kinda like how this earth... isn't designed for you?" she retorted, and right on queue, the Goblin glitched again. "You made a big mistake coming here!"
The Goblin tried swinging his blade at her again, but she caught it in an armlock and followed up with a round of jabs, crosses, overhands, and uppercuts, on his face and body.
"You really thought it was a good idea to trap me?" She grabbed him by the throat, squeezing hard around his windpipe. "You trapped yourself!"
"IN...SECT..." he grunted hatefully.
Gwen felt the need to correct him. "I'm actually—"
But before she could finish, the glider whirled upside down with such ferocity that she was flung off; even with her sticky powers, she couldn't keep her footing.
Quickly recovering, she landed with grace in the middle of an intersection, which skidded every vehicle there to a deafening stop with their screeching tires and honking.
There was no time to apologize. She stared up at the green menace, her fists at her side, as he hovered above with a snarl, having yet to make his next move.
"What?" she shrugged. "Running out of steam already?"
"DON'T GET COCKY, SPIDER-BRAT!" he spat, venom brewing in his eyes. "LET'S SEE HOW YOU LIKE THESE APPLES!"
The ghostly spider watched in anticipation as he reached into his bag-o-tricks and pulled out six pumpkin bombs, three in each hand between his fingers. She tensed up, ready to dodge the incoming explosives... but that didn't happen.
Instead, he dropped those bombs into two portals next to him and grinned widely. "CAN YOU CATCH THEM ALL!?" He folded his arms and threw his head up in another mad cackle.
Realization hitting her, Gwen's spider-sense got her to spin around see more black portals opening above the streets in several locations, each of them raining a smoking pumpkin down onto the fleeing citizens below... and there was no way she would get them all in time.
But in that split-second, she remembered what Miles taught her... focus on saving one life.
And so, she launched herself after the nearest bomb, webbed it towards her hand before it could hit anyone, and pitched it into the sky towards the Goblin, who ducked it before it exploded a fair distance behind him.
"MISSED ME!" He blew a raspberry, which aggravated her.
She prepared for the worst... the inevitable... as all those around her, those she tried to protect... those who also think of her as a monster... were all about to lose their lives because of her limitations... when a miracle happened.
Several more portals blossomed around the street near those incoming explosives, except they were glowing purplish violet... and out came a spider from every one of them. All at once, like a swift intertwining of streams, they each took care of those hazards, saving all the other lives she couldn't reach.
Her Spider-Gang, led by Peter B. Parker, had arrived to help her.
As soon as they took care of business and made sure no one else was hurt, they all swung over to the Earth 65B Spider-Woman and huddled next to her; her mask couldn't hide the relief she felt underneath.
"How did you know to get here?" she asked delightedly. "I didn't have my goober."
"Miles." Peter simply said. "He sensed you were in trouble and told us right away."
"Miles..." She shook in grateful amazement, holding her chest without realizing.
"Aren't you two lucky that you imprinted on each other?" Hobie added, winking through his mask.
"Huh?" Gwen blushed in embarrassment, hiding her masked face in her hood. "I-I... d-don't know what you mean by that?"
Pavitir, who was always good at reading people, read her body language like a book and hopped with joy. "Oh! You and Miles!? You two actually...?"
"Focus!" Noir stepped in with his commanding tone.
Pavitir stiffened immediately. "Yes, sir!"
All the Spiders turned to the Green Goblin, who was glaring down at them all like he had been bastardized. "THIS IS NOT FAIR!" he growled, shaking his fists. "I'M SICK OF ALL YOU SPIDERS GANGING UP AND RUINING MY FUN!"
"This is your idea of fun!?" yelled Gwen, now boiling with rage and disgust.
"MY IDEA OF FUN IS TARGET PRACTICE, BUT WITH SO MANY OF YOU NOW, IT FEELS LIKE I'M PLAYING ONE OF THOSE RIGGED CARNIVAL GAMES!"
"How about you just give up, Goblin!?" cried Peter. "You're outgunned!"
"OUTGUNNED!?" he snarled, and then chuckled. "I'M THE ONE WITH THE FIREPOWER!"
"It's just a figure of—it doesn't matter!"
Before anything more could be said, the Goblin glitched again and vomited another trail of blood onto the pavement far below.
"Ooh, he looks pretty sick!" Pavitir shuddered as he saw the red puddle.
Clutching himself in pain, the Goblin breathed raggedly as he shifted his eyes to each of the different Spiders before a sinister idea crossed his mind, and he bared his teeth again in a sickly smile as he launched two missiles from his glider into a portal that he summoned in front of him.
Right then, a distant explosion shook the block, almost catching the heroes off-balance... it came from behind... and all turned to see a building blazing in an inferno, bricks and rubble raining down on the streets below.
"No, he didn't!" cried the Indian Spider, holding his face in both hands.
The Green Goblin shrieked with laughter again, though it was marred by the sickness in his stomach.
Peter and the others wasted no time and swung off while Gwen lingered behind. She wanted to help those people caught inside that fire, she really did... but this was also her one chance to take down this threat once and for all, especially since he was now vulnerable.
"YOU HAVE A CHOICE, SPIDER-GIRL!" he bellowed tauntingly. "YOU CAN CHASE ME AND LET THOSE PEOPLE DIE!" She glared murderously; the offer was all too tempting.
But her sense of responsibility overpowered her impulse to give this freak what he so rightly deserved. Loosening her fists, she hung her head bitterly.
"THE WORST IS YET TO COME!" And with that last threat, he made his escape.
"Coward." Gwen muttered under her breath.
Turning away, she made for the burning building herself. As furious as she was, she was also empowered with a sense of pride at having repelled one of her worst fears... but his last words still echoed in her head.
*****
Gwen shielded her face as she waded through this smoky inferno. She couldn't see any other Spiders or anything really, let alone breathe properly; the air was so toxified that it wanted to strangle her.
Following the screams through the sound of impending destruction, she found a couple of people trapped under some debris, both barely conscious and coughing for air... it reminded her so much of her own Peter Parker, finding him under that rubble after beating the Lizard before he died in her arms, and she would not let this happen again.
"H-Help... please." wheezed the man.
"It's okay..." she assured him, coughing, "... I'm here to get you out."
Bending her knees appropriately, Spider-Woman lifted the concrete chunk just enough so she could then get under it and lift it all on her shoulders. With her leg work, she worked all her muscles down there to push down with her feet until, surely enough, she was almost standing upright with the weight of the world on her shoulders.
"Can you move?" she asked the man.
"Y-Yeah..." he said, and then reached for the woman laying next to him. "C-Come on..."
Gwen held up the enormous debris until the man and woman crawled out from under it and then dropped it behind her with a definite crash. She then scooped their arms over her shoulders to carry them off to safety.
"T-Thank you..." said the woman, now recognizing this Spider. "Maybe... you're not as bad... as the media says."
Gwen was genuinely warmed by this comment. "Thanks."
She limped them to a nearby exit that she could just barely see ahead of them... when fire rained down from above it, along with more debris, and blocked their exit.
"Shoot!" she cursed under her breath, not wanting to panic the others. "It's okay... we're getting out of here."
The young hero could also sense that this floor wasn't going to hold much longer. It was too hard to see, too hard to hear, and almost impossible to breathe now. Her mind was also clouded as it raced for a solution... any solution.
Suddenly, the flaming debris that was blocking their exit blew apart. A blinding ray of light shone through the doorway, along with a burly silhouette. Squinting, she first caught a glimpse of a red glowing emblem on this figure's head, chest, and shoulders. This dark silhouette then turned blue as soon as the smoke thinned.
Gwen's throat was so sore that she could barely say his name. "Mi...guel...?"
"Come on!" The 2099 Spider-Man reached out with his hand. "We got everyone else out!"
With a new burst of energy, she carried her two rescuees to the exit where he took the man off her hands. Together, they swung down to the streets to safety where all the other spider-people were waiting; Miguel had brought his crew as well.
Her Spider-Gang, apart from Peter and Noir, all sprinted to embrace her.
"Gwen, thank God!"
"You're okay!"
"We were worried you didn't make it out!"
"I thought you became a brittle pork chop!"
"I'm okay, guys!" Gwen pulled away from her friends, coughing lightly. "Really."
"Good job, kid." said Peter, who nodded along with Noir.
"Thank you so much for coming!"
She looked to all her companions gratefully, and then to Miguel O'Hara, who was busy talking to the officials. As soon as they glanced at each other, they exchanged nods.
Noir cleared his throat to get the girl's attention. "Your friend, Miles, who is also my friend, asked us to do you a favor." He observed the gathering civilians around them before he continued. "It looks like the public opinion is starting to shift in your favor, which should open up the floodgates."
"Floodgates?" Gwen frowned questioningly. "For what?"
"Your innocence in Peter Parker's death."
She paused, anticipating where this was going in nervous excitement.
The black-and-white Spider-Man placed a hand on his chest. "I've taken it upon myself to do some detective work that should eventually clear your name. I'll be working anonymously with your father, George Stacy."
"Dad!" she cried out, suddenly fearing the worst. "T-Thanks! I gotta go see him!"
Noir simply tipped his hat to the young Spider-Woman as she took off. Everyone else in her gang waved after her.
*****
As soon as she made it back to her apartment through her back window, the young Spider unmasked herself and scanned through the house for her dad. There was no sign of him anywhere.
"Dad!" she called out.
Suddenly, she heard a toilet flush. Turning to the bathroom, she saw him come out and sped across the room to hug him, her sudden appearance nearly jumping the old man out of his skin.
"Whoah, sweetie! What's up?"
Gwen pressed the side of her face into his torso like a pillow. "I'm so glad you're okay!"
Understanding right away from how dirty her white costume was, he hugged her back with his huge arms.
With the worst behind her for now, all she could think of was finding that Goblin and putting a stop to his terror before anyone else, especially Miles, could get hurt.
*****
Back in Earth 1610, some hours had passed since Miles got news from Peter that Gwen and the others were all safe, which allowed him to finally relax; he had been agitated all day from when he left school. He could finally do his homework and hobbies in peace.
At his desk, the teen boy found himself pulling the silliest faces with his tongue as he concentrated on his latest sketch, which was Gwen asleep in her bed from when he last visited her. With his pencils, he took extra care as always to draw her features accurately from her messy blonde strands all over her face, the pillow creases behind her head, her restful eyes, and her faintly content smile.
When he suddenly heard his parents pacing towards his door, he frightfully slammed his sketchbook shut and spilled his pencils onto the floor. His mom and dad barged in, their faces radiating with gleeful excitement.
"H-Hey, mom... dad..." Miles rested his elbow on his desk, trying to behave innocently. "What's with the comical glee on your faces?"
His mom turned to his dad, still grinning. "Should I tell him?" He nodded.
It didn't take long for Miles to absorb their excitement, and he found himself bouncing his legs in anticipation. "Mom... what is it?"
"Good news." She was literally shaking. "We've found you a heart!"
His reaction was a few seconds delayed, and then it sunk in. "Wait... a new heart!?" He jumped out of his chair. "You serious!"
She nodded, her hair flying. "Yes!"
"Oh, my God!" Miles, overcome with elation, ran into his mother's arms.
His dad looped his arms around the two, joining the embrace; none could yet see the silvery tears streaming down the man's cheeks. "Thank God!" he cried.
This nightmare, Miles realized, was finally going to be over, and he couldn't wait to tell Gwen most of all.