"Peter?"
Your foot is slipping, you can't—the web snaps, leaves the sound ringing, like strumming cords, like bouncing cables, like heartbreak—and her beautiful lips work their way into a perfect 'O' (god her lips) and that hair her beautiful hair fans out around her pale face and you dive.
You had always assumed in a situation like this that time would freeze—it doesn't. It's so fast, so damn quick and you shoot out a strand of web, and it's reaching out for her, yearning for her. Her eyes are so wide, so terrified, (so green), they're shrieking at you, how could you let happen, Peter? You should've listened to my father and finally the web grazes her stomach and you laugh with relief…But then you feel the recoil of the web, hear the sickening crack, hear her head colliding into the cold concrete…And you see her body go limp, like a little rag doll, and she dangles from your lone strand of web—YOUR web, you fucking did this, you KILLED HER and all the gears and cods collapse around her, surrounding her like a halo because god she's an angel, the clock tolls and your time is up.
Its ringing possesses your ears, sneaking into the ventricles of your bleeding heart and the purity of it, the absoluteness of it resounds into your lungs and you can't breathe, you know now that you'll never really breathe again.
You swoop down and you think that your heart has ceased to function. You creep towards her and you're already sobbing because her eyes aren't opening, her eyes aren't opening. "Gwen?"
You place your arms around her neck (her goddamn mangled neck) and the back of her knees and you begin to whimper when you realize this is how you would have held her as you walked into your home as newlyweds…you didn't know how Gwen felt about marriage. You had never asked.
"Gwen?"
You fall onto your knees, clutching her tightly, your body trembling. "Hey. Hey." You gently shake her head, rub her neck. "Hey." The arch of her eyelids do not stir. "You're okay", you weep, and you repeat it because it has to be true. You grab her hair, yank at it the way she likes (used to like), "Stay with me." You're screaming, "STAY WITH ME" and her beautiful face remains the same; pale, full, dead.
Her green eyes, which used to shine so brightly of emeralds, of a long, healthy life, her red lips (he would never kiss them again), her rosy cheeks, her nose—she'll never rub her nose again. "Gwen? No, please...please…"
You bow your head down into the nape of her neck and sob. The bell tolls again and you can feel it mocking you, teasing you…what you wouldn't give for a little more time..
"You wanted to be the hero. And now you gotta pay the price."