This sucked.

Gwen asked herself again in the police station if she should be here.

NOPE

She attempted to facepalm but was restrained by the handcuffs attaching her to the metal chair. She looked back up at the police officer sitting in the opposite corner of the office. He was studying the contents of her pockets, which were laid out on a plastic tray on the desk.

The cop held her driver's license up to the light and inspected it carefully. "Forgery," he said, making a note on his tablet. "That's another addition to the charges against you."

Gwen stared at her feet. The license wasn't counterfeited, and neither was the money. It was just made by a government from another dimension. But the man would never believe her if she told him.

"And these pills," the officer continued, holding a capsule of web fluid between his thumb and index finger, "are unlike any drugs I've seen."

"They're not drugs," interrupted Gwen.

The officer – his name was Officer Robertson, according to his badge – turned to look at her. "I'm sorry?"

Gwen backpedaled, knowing that she couldn't reveal the web fluid's real purpose. "They're, well, they're drugs, yeah, but they're prescription. For my headaches and stuff. You know, the bad things. The ones you need medicine for?"

Officer Robertson raised his eyebrows. "Migraines?"

Cover stories weren't exactly Gwen's forte.

"Yeah, yeah, I think so. Or wait. You mean migrations, right?"

"They're called migraines, miss, uh, Gwendolyn Stacy. That is your name, right?"

"What? Yeah. Yessir. That's right. But you can call me Gwen. Sir."

"And how old are you?"

"S-sixteen last June, sir."

Officer Robertson nodded and jotted down another note. "Your fingerprints aren't anywhere in our database, so there's no existing charges against you, you'll be happy to know." He picked up Gwen's notebook and started to flip through it.

Gwen knew that there was nothing incriminating in her notebook, since it was still fairly new. She'd used up what, two of them now? Regardless, there wasn't much in there. Gwen tried to remember what she'd written down so far. A shopping list, some lyric ideas for her band (although she knew Em Jay probably wouldn't care), random doodles; stuff like that. Nothing revealing her secret identity, thank goodness.

It was weird being on the other side of the cuffs. Gwen was no stranger to the police force – her father had been a captain for as long as she could remember – but even that one time, after P-... after her friend was killed, she hadn't been interred. But, of course, Gwen knew what was coming next. She'd be thrown in a cell, she'd be given an attorney, she'd go to trial, she'd end up in prison, she'd be stuck on this parallel universe for the rest of her pitiful existence. It was enough to make her want to scream.

Another factor which induced the same irritating effect was the constant feedback from her spider-sense, the incessant warnings of "HOSTILE SITUATION". Gwen knew that she was in hot water, and she didn't need to be notified about it a thousand or so times.

But she didn't scream. She'd had a lot of practice bottling up her emotions. And if she did, it would likely get her in even more trouble with the cops.

Officer Robertson set down the notepad and unzipped Gwen's stolen backpack, which, she now noticed, still bore the Bold Navy price tag. He removed Gwen's mask, gloves, and ballet slippers, and set them on the tray.

A young red-haired man burst into the room. "Hey! Hey! Handwriting sample! There's a thing!"

Officer Robertson turned to look at the man, who couldn't be much older than Gwen. "Jake. What do you need?"

Jake held up a slip of paper with a ragged top edge which was partly covered with writing. "This was recovered from Bold Navy just a little bit ago, and it has some sort of... chemical stuff on it. Dunno what it is, but it's sticky." He removed his thumb from the paper, holding it upside-down on his index finger, and it didn't move.

Gwen's eyes widened.

"Your point is...?" asked Officer Robertson.

He examined the paper more closely, then looked back down at the notebook, flipping through it, finding a matching torn edge. His eyes lit up.

Officer Robertson snatched the paper from Jake's hand and said, "Go get a graphologist." Jake obediently ran out of the room.

The cop studied a page in the notebook carefully, comparing it to the page from Bold Navy. He looked up at Gwen. "This notebook belongs to you, right?"

"Yessir."

"And you're the only person who has written in it?"

Gwen hung her head. She knew where this conversation was going, so there was no more point in keeping anything from him.

"Yeah. I wrote that note, and I stole the clothes."

Officer Robertson raised his eyebrows. "Is that so?"

"Yessir. I'm wearing them right now, sir. Please, don't take them from me. The, uh, the stuff I'm wearing is the only clothes I've got right now."

She wasn't lying. Her suit was under her clothes.

Officer Robertson folded his arms across his chest. "That's fine. You can wear them for the time being. We'll get you a jumpsuit tomorrow. But for now, you're staying overnight in the holding cell."

Gwen nodded dejectedly.

The uniformed man seemed to notice her downtrodden mood. "Do you have any family to call and talk to?"

"No, sir, uh, not around here."

Again, she wasn't technically lying.

"All right then, kid." Officer Robertson unlatched one of Gwen's handcuffs and led her out of the room and through the halls to a holding cell. It was bare except for a cot, toilet, and sink. He released her into the cell, then shut the heavy metal door behind her.
"Try to get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning."

Gwen stood in the middle of the cell, shaking, waiting for the man's footsteps to fade away. She punched the door, leaving a fist-shaped dent in it and making her hand throb. She fell backwards onto the bed and tried to sleep.

Everything about this sucked.