I do not own the Amazing Spiderman nor any of the characters. I am merely borrowing them for my stories and musings; I shall return them, so don't sue me please!
He'd been avoiding her for a month now. Every day he sat behind her in English, every day he passed her in the halls. But he never acknowledged her presence, never communicated. She just barely could see the pain in his eyes at times, before it disappeared and his face went blank.
Oh, Peter. Gwen thought sadly. Why can't you understand that I'm hurting more without you than I ever could if I were injured? She shook her head. Oh, Spiderman.
She often had dreams or fantasies where he came back to her, with roses and candies. He'd apologize, with much more words than Peter would ever really be capable of, and then they'd kiss. He would swing them off into the sunset and Gwen would awake with a smile on her face, only to become depressed a moment later when she realized it was not real.
Just as often as her fantasies, though, were terrible nightmares. These were more varied than her other dreams, followed different plots. In some, she would be captured by the Lizard, though she knew he was gone forever. The Lizard would capture her and take her to his lab in the sewers. He would corner her, threaten her, say terrible things. Then Spiderman, her sweet Peter, would swoop in and say something witty and sarcastic. He would pull the Lizard off Gwen, and the two would rumble breifly before the Lizard would pin Peter down (much easier, Gwen reasoned, than Peter could ever be pinned down in reality) and stab his claws through Peter's body, then rip them violently back out.
Gwen always woke crying and trembling, with the sheets wrapped around her body. She would look out the window, hoping to see a flash of red and blue (once she swore she did, but she could never quite prove it to herself) on the fire escape.
Gwen shuddered, clicking her pen against her desk. She didn't want to think of such a terrible thing as Peter being killed.
He came in late to class, disrupting her musings and the teacher's lesson.
"How nice of you to join us, Peter." Mrs. Cox said, in a disapproving way.
Peter sighed and slid into the seat behind Gwen. "It won't happen again, ma'am. I promise."
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Mr. Parker." Then the teacher turned back to the board.
In a low whisper, so quiet Gwen almost couldn't understand him, Peter said, "But those are the best kind."
At this Gwen felt a smile begin to tug at the corners of her mouth. Despite her anger and sadness at his ignoring her and trying to keep the promise he made to her father - her dead father, who couldn't reinforce this agreement because he was, well, dead - Gwen felt utterly elated at those six words, six words that filled her heart with hope.
All through class Gwen's eyes were glued to the clock. All through class, Gwen Stacey did not know any of the answers. All through class, Gwen Stacey did not take notes. For once, Gwen Stacey was not being a star student. Because Gwen Stacey was in love. She was in love with Spiderman. She was in love with an idiot. And being in love with Spiderman the idiot meant that she would be distracted from class from time to time.
When the bell finally rang, Gwen all but threw her things into her bag and bolted from the room. Peter, of course, was already gone by the time she'd looked up. Damn him and his super-human abilities, Gwen thought absently. Their next period was a free track, which either meant Peter would be skating around the parking lot on his skateboard or off as Spiderman and fighting crime. The latter had become much more frequent as of late. At least, this is what Gwen assumed Peter was doing, as he was, in fact, Spiderman and he strongly believed in his responsibility for the world's well being.
She walked around the school, and when she saw no sign of him, she deflated. Sighing, Gwen sat under an oak tree in the school's yard and pulled out a book. She paid no attention to the title. She couldn't pay attention to the story.
Her mind was too distracted by Peter. By Spiderman. Many times when he wasn't at the school during their free track she worried about him, but this time it was different. Now not only was she worried for his well being and his life, but now she had his words in English to mull over and worry over. As time passed, she began to wonder if he meant what she thought he meant by his words. What if he was messing with her head? The more rational part of her mind told her that this was highly unlikely, as Peter wasn't that cruel. But another part told her that hey, she never knew. He was, after all, cunning and he often played with the minds of his enemies.
Before Gwen knew it, the bell rang, and she realized she had been absently staring at her book for over forty minutes. She shook her head and headed to her next class, Trig. After that was their lunch period, which was one Peter was also absent for many days. The next class she had with his was last period, History. She sighed, trying to console herself that she would see him in the halls.
Only she didn't see him in the halls. He wasn't at his locker at all and she didn't see him walk into his gym class before lunch or out of his math class or into History at all. He didn't come into last period late, and by then Gwen was getting worried. He was usually only gone one or two periods, three at the most, when he left to be Spiderman. But now he had missed most of the day.
Gwen practically ran home, and flew into the living room out of breath to turn on the news. Just as she did, the anchor man was finishing saying, "Breaking news!"
She watched with wide eyes while the anchor man, who was probably in his fifties but still seeming excited about Spiderman, was covering a fight between the masked hero and a masked person who called themself the Green Goblin.
The Goblin seemed to be a good fighter, as he had Peter occupied and constantly on the defensive. Gwen unconsciously began biting her nails. After a few minutes she had made a decision, and she dropped her bags on the floor and ran back out of her apartment complex.
By the time she reached the fight, the Goblin had managed to blow up half a building and Gwen could see other bombs stuck in Spiderman's signiture webs. She looked up at the battling superhumans, the Green Goblin flying around on a hovering board type thing and Spiderman swinging on his webbing. He was more or less swinging in circles around the Goblin. Gwen couldn't tell why.
"The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout!" The Green Goblin said in a sing-song voice, cackling in a deranged way. He threw a bomb in Spiderman's direction, which made Gwen yell to him to him.
"Spiderman watch out!"
Peter's head snapped in her direction. The Green Goblin looked down at her.
"DOWN came the GOBLIN!" The Goblin cackled, swooping down toward Gwen. She turned to try to run away. "And SNATCHED the spider's girl!" Laughed the villain as his cold, metal-covered hands closed around Gwen's waist. Gwen screamed as the Goblin's hovering device propelled them higher into the sky.
"Gwen!" She heard Peter's frantic voice call out.
She looked back to see him dodging various debris and bombs that the Green Goblin was throwing toward him. Spiderman twisted to the side, bent in inhuman ways, flipped this way and that through the air to avoid his obstacles. He was mad. Murderous. Gwen didn't know how she knew, she just did.
Peter jumped from his last web and latched onto the back of the Goblin's hover board. He crawled about the bottom like a spider, then popped up in the front and said, "Up came the spider, and broke the Goblin's toy and the itsy-bitsy spider took his girl again."
Then he jumped past the Green Goblin, who was trying to get back in control of his malfunctioning machine. His arms wrapped around Gwen and they began to fall down. Gwen gulped. Spiderman shot out some web to a tall building and their fall ceased. Instead they were soaring over the city and away from the Goblin's derranged cries and threats.
They landed in an alley, and he set Gwen down roughly and swung past her a few feet before letting go of his web.
"What the hell?" He yelled. He pulled his mask off and tossed it unceremoniously to the ground. "What were you doing out there? Are you INSANE?" Peter threw his arms up in the air.
Gwen crossed her arms. While she had been worried about him before, now she was mad. "Oh, so NOW you're worried about me?" She said scathingly.
This seemed to make Peter furious. "I've always cared about you, Gwendolyn. Don't you dare accuse me of not caring for you!"
Gwen was slightly taken aback by his use of her given name rather than her nickname. She couldn't remember the last time someone called her Gwendolyn. "Oh, that is rich, Peter." She said, glaring. "Because you've made it clear over the last month that you don't give a damn about me."
"You know what, Gwen, you're right." Peter spat. Gwen felt like she'd been slapped.
She took a step back, tears threatening. How could he say that? How could he say that so easily and not mean it?
But Peter stopped her from running by speaking again. "Because I come to your window every night to make sure you're okay. I always think of you when I'm in a hard fight, thinking that if I don't win then you'll get hurt. I have Aunt May check in on your mother. And you know what proves it the most? I'm keeping my promise to your father that he asked me to make on his deathbed even though it's killing me every single second I'm not with you. So obvisouly I don't give a damn." He said the last sentence with acidic sarcasm. His face showed utter disgust and she realized she must have offended him.
She watched him as he looked down at his hands, no more words to say. She wondered how angry she must have made him that he, awkward, introverted Peter Parker, had just spilled his feelings and found good words to do so.
"You," Gwen said, "Peter Parker, are an idiotic, cocky, ass." She took a few steps closer. "And I am so mad at you. You idiot bug boy!"
By then she was directly in front of him. He was staring at her. Staring at her with those big brown eyes of his. He was giving her a hard look. Then he roughly grabbed the back of her head and pulled her mouth to his in a kiss.
It was a passionate kiss. Peter's tongue had just barely grazed Gwen's lip before she opened her mouth and let him in. Tongues danced, fingers tangled in hair, and bodies pressed firmly together.
When they pulled back, gasping and bodies still touching, Gwen looked into his eyes again. They were intense, warm. Loving. "I love you," Gwen gasped.
Peter kissed her again, shorter this time, then pulled back and kissed her forehead. "I love you too."
The End. ;)
