Well, there you have it, folks. Because I don't own Spider-Man, my creation of this chapter, I think, kinda flopped. Seeing as it is the most important chapter so far...
Well.
It's not good for it to flop.
I have to apologize for two things:
1. For being so late. Senior year plus draft after draft of horribleness does that to you. If you guys have any suggestions at all, I would really really really appreciate them. You know I would because I broke all the laws of grammar with the "really really really".
2. For this horrifically long AN. There's one at the bottom too...
Enjoy!
She's Just A Bit Rebellious
Chapter 10: After All, This Is It
"Oh god…" Gwen moans as she opens her eyes and refocuses on the scenery. Crisp white sheets, antiseptic smell, constant beeps: a hospital.
And of course her mother's smothering her with kisses and the twins are fighting for complete domination of the armchair next to her and Howie's silent.
Where's Peter?
Her mother's called the doctor, who checks her blood pressure and changes her drips and asks her what she remembers.
"Nothing."
Her mother starts crying.
"It's nothing to worry about," the doctor assures her. "Temporary amnesia. What's your name?"
"Gwen Stacy."
"Age?"
"Seventeen."
"School?"
"Midtown Science High School."
"What do you last remember?"
Gwen blushes. "Kissing Peter."
"Temporary amnesia," the doctor reaffirms. She checks Gwen's temperature and promises to be back in an hour.
Gwen turns to her mother. "What happened?"
Her mother starts crying again and Gwen sighs.
She lays there patiently as her mother mollycoddles her and the twins climb on the bed to cuddle up to her and Howie still remains silent.
Then her mother takes the twins and leaves and Gwen asks Howie. "What happened?"
Howie ignores her.
The last time she'd received a proper silent treatment from her brother is when she got so angry with him for cutting her Barbie's hair off that she applied her mother's lipstick on her sleeping brother and he didn't notice until he was halfway through the school day.
So, nine years ago.
"Why are you angry?"
Silence.
"Is it because I got hurt when I said I wouldn't?"
Howie just grunts.
Gwen doesn't know what to do so she twiddles her thumbs for a while.
Her mother's back and Gwen asks her and her mother starts crying again (Gwen suspects it's because she doesn't want to tell her daughter what happened).
She even tries asking the twins, who both insist that she'd been attacked by aliens.
Okay. Okay, so. I can figure this out. I'm a smart girl. I'm a smart girl who probably has a lot of homework she has to do. Gwen starts panicking. Calm down. Peter will tell me.
So she waits for Peter, being compliant and eating the disgusting hospital food as she looks out the window eagerly for the quick flash of blue and red.
When it never comes, she gets suspicious.
What happened?
"Howie?"
He's still ignoring her three days later.
"You don't have to tell me what's going on. Just tell me if Peter's okay?"
He grunts.
She's learned that a grunt means yes, which gets her worried because Peter would have visited by now if he were okay.
Gwen's unbelievably bored. She's played way too many games of Uno with the nurses and she can't figure out how to change the language of the TV from Mandarin to English.
She's so bored that she's getting so impatient for Peter to come and whisk her away.
She's so bored that her mind starts wandering. An idle mind is a devil's workshop.
She sits one day, and she commands herself to think, dammit. Think!
And she tries to focus on scenes. She was in that corner café when someone came and kidnapped her and then everything was black, but she remembered sounds of engines being turned on so constantly.
She was in Port Authority.
And then it's a onslaught of images:
She's gagged and bleeding and crying PETER she tries to shout nobody answers and they make her speak to the police on the phone and promise them she's okay and they hit her over the head again PETER she tries to shout nobody answers and she's awake again and they've given her grey mush they call food and a bit of water too PETER PETER PETER nobody answers she knows she's going to die here and they're going to hit her over the head and she shouts again PETER and this time she hears it, loud and clear, and shocked GWEN.
Gwen's been drugged. And she wakes up and she knows she was in Port Authority and she can taste the horrible grey mush again and she can hear herself trying to call out for Peter but she can't hear his response.
What happened?
The doctor tells her that she's free to go tomorrow but she has to be in touch with their "friend", a psychiatrist meant to help with her PTSD.
She agrees grudgingly.
She's released the next day, and she stumbles home to her phone and calls Peter again and again but he doesn't respond.
So she goes to his house.
Aunt May answers with a warm smile and a hot chocolate and tells her Peter's out with Harry.
So she tries to hunt Harry down by calling MJ who releases a litany of questions:"What happened? Why did you miss my party? Did you get kidnapped? Did you hear that Susan and Josh broke up? Why did you miss my party? … No, Harry's not with me. He's down at the bowling alley."
So she hangs up on MJ and promises to see her tonight and she goes to the bowling alley. She can spot Harry's hair from a mile, and sure enough, Peter's with him.
He looks fine physically.
So she ducks behind a wall and calls Peter again and watches as he ignores her phone call.
What happened?
She sinks down to her feet as there's another onslaught of memories: Peter's yelling at her and telling her to stay out of it and that he was trying to find Gwen but he can't and he swishes closer to her suddenly and she flinches on reflex and backs up and then Spider-Man has suddenly webbed her. And she's calling his name out again PETER PETER PETER and he shouts back, loud and clear, and shocked GWEN.
What happened?
Harry spots her out of the corner of his eye and he looks at her, long and hard, and he turns away without alerting Peter.
What happened?
She figures it was time to meet her psychiatrist.
Dr. Caverly is a nice, warm man and he has this demeanor of always talking in hushed tones, like he's talking to a frightened puppy.
Gwen doesn't quite want to liken herself to a frightened puppy at the moment; she'd rather be an elephant with all the memory in the world.
Dr. Caverly starts each session out by asking her what she wants from him, and each time, she tells him she wants her memory back.
They work hard on trying to get her memory back and fragments of it come back in sharp shards that she's too scared to approach. She tells Dr. Caverly about her sudden fear to remember and he tells her it's natural, and to just take a deep breath because, as she points out at the beginning of each session, she just wants to remember.
So she does.
"Listen to me, you are going to tell them you are fine, you are going to tell them we're not hurting you, you are going to tell them we need a ransom. Do you understand?"
Gwen is crying.
They kick her side. "Do you understand?"
"Yes."
So they call the police and they ask her if she's okay and they try to negotiate with her kidnappers and she tells them they need a ransom. She tells them that she won't tell them where she is because the place stinks. She knows that Peter is tapping into this phone call and she knows he understands that on their fourteenth date, Port Authority smelled strangely like onions and Gwen couldn't stop complaining. She knows Peter is coming for her.
She tells Dr. Caverly about the phone call but carefully cuts out anything pertaining to Peter. He tells her to continue.
Somehow, she's found her bag and they've taken everything other than her gum and her mask. She wears the mask and it's not much, but it gives her a feeling that could possibly resemble strength and resilience and she head butts a measly security guard and runs.
With the baggy clothes they've given her, running becomes so hard as she's almost tripping over her own feet. She's never been more scared in her life.
She tells Dr. Caverly about this but leaves out the part about the mask because he wouldn't understand that she was the masked vigilante and that somehow, without the mask, she didn't have any strength. She was becoming too dependent on it.
She's ducked behind a pillar because they're searching for her and they've moved to a floor lower. She sees the flash of red and blue that immediately instills a calm in her because oh god, Peter's here. He doesn't notice her at first and then he turns around and freezes. She waits for him to take her in his arms, standing so still.
He aims a kick at her instead, and knocks the wind out of her lungs.
She realizes that she still looks like the masked vigilante.
And then, she and her beloved are fighting.
Gwen fabricates a story about how she found a tiny door to escape by.
And then she tries and she tries to remember more but she can't.
He tells her that she's made spectacular progress and that she's to be back the next day.
As Gwen walks home, she doesn't see a flash of blue and red.
Gwen's dreams make less sense than her memories that night but they make more sense too; she can taste her own fear and blood now.
"Peter!" she wants to shout but she doesn't; she waits for him to take her in his arms.
He swiftly aims a kick at her stomach instead.
She's ducking from him and he's following her and she's never realized how powerful and frightening he is, especially when she's his enemy.
Her lip is cut and she tries to run away and Spider-Man notices that.
"You kidnapped her," he accuses. "That's why you've been around her so much; you've been stalking her! Where is she?" He kicks her again.
She tries to talk but her lungs have collapsed on her. She's trying to beg him to stop but he won't. He wears her down until she's about to pass out from the pain and suddenly she's webbed, her head hitting the wall behind her.
She's nearly out and she wants to shout PETER PETER PETER but she can't.
And he's coming towards her and he snarls: "Who the hell are you?"
PETER PETER PETER she wants to shout and he shouts back, loud and clear, and shocked GWEN.
And he's reaching towards her mask PETER PETER PETER and he's clasped it in his fingers PETER PETER PETER and suddenly he's yanked it off, and:
"Gwen!"
He knows.
I really have no words for this chapter. Feedback, feedback, feedback!
So yes, Peter knows. And now, Gwen knows that Peter knows. And Harry knows, too. And Gwen knows that Harry knows and everyone knows that everyone else knows which leaves MJ out of the loop.
Let me know what you think!