AN: I haven't written fanfiction in who knows how long, so forgive me if this is a little rusty. It started off as a oneshot for a roleplay I'm in, but I was happy enough with it to put it up here. Reviews are lovely to receive, and constructive criticism even more so.
The city, for once, is silent. Blessedly silent. The wailing police sirens that have become synonymous with aching fear and worry; they too are quiet. It should be the best night's sleep Gwen is like to get in a while, because the sirens won't stay quiet for long. And yet she is awake, bare feet drumming against the seat of her chair in irritation that simply leads her in circles. For all her knowledge of human biology, she can't begin to explain the knot that twists around itself in the pit of her stomach. Truth be told, she doesn't want to explain it. Emotions are something Gwen has tried to cast off a long time ago; perhaps too long ago. When you stood heart-in-mouth at the door, night after night, both hoping and dreading the sound of keys in the lock and praying that this wouldn't be the time they brought your father back home on a hospital bed – well, what else was there but to compartmentalise? Store the hurt away and make it manageable, make it liveable. It's futile in the end, and she should know that better than any. It never stops. Even now, even with her father dead and buried, even when she dares to hope that maybe with her father gone, she won't have to fear any longer (and the hope still makes her cringe because how can she possibly see positives in his death) that fear refuses to go away, because she's been given a new person to fear for. Just like old times. In her half-awake state of consciousness, the notion is laughable. Things never change.
But things have changed; Gwen isn't blind to herself. She knows there is no logical reason for her to be up at four in the morning with the sunlight still edging up over the lip of her windowsill. There is no logical reason for her legs to be carrying her across her floor to that same window, and for her fingers to fumble at the latch until the 'click' tells her there is further still no logical reason for her to be slipping her way onto the fire escape and ignoring the pain that shoots through her when she catches her ankle on the window frame, no logical reason for her to be clutching desperately at the railings for something, anything solid, even as she turns her face to the heavens with a half-prayer on her lips, searching the night sky for him. Loving Peter Parker has never been a logical decision.
It has never been something she can control or bend to her will; and, she thinks, maybe that's why feelings scare her so much, because Gwen Stacy - the girl always in control, the class valedictorian, the all-star student, the very image of youth in all its vibrancy and strength – Gwen Stacy is powerless against love. There are no walls she can construct high enough to keep it out; no flood defences this time around, no map to point her in the right direction with enough scrutiny. 'You should shut the blinds when you sleep', her mother tells her one evening over dinner, and Gwen can't bring herself to explain that no matter what, she'll never shut the blinds. Because shutting the blinds means shutting out him, means turning her back on the hope she can't let go of, and won't let go of. And then sitting out on the twentieth-story fire escape in nothing but a nightie doesn't seem so illogical at all.