Daisy was tiered. Since Gwen disappeared five days earlier she hadn't slept well, mostly because she worried about Gwen too much.

They still didn't have any sightings of her, whether as 'Gwen Stacey' or as 'Ghost-Spider', which bolstered the theories that Murderdock or Bite-size had gotten her. If she had thought it would help she'd have already gone after Murderdock, but the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents tasked with his surveillance hadn't seen anything unusual from him, and Bite-size...

They'd seen her a few times, but only Daisy had seen her when she wasn't around other people, and only twice. Still, Bite-size was good at running, so she'd gotten away. They had tried to find a pattern to her, but she seemed to move sporadically across the whole city, even outside of Manhattan, with no clear purpose. A.M.I. was looking through social media for any more appearances but still hadn't found any pattern or figured out where she slept, assuming she even had a home.

Daisy was worried, but worrying wasn't helpful, so she tried to distract herself with Exile.

Sorting through everything Exile had done in prison to figure out what his goal was, what he planned to do with his inhuman army, wasn't too useful. The guards didn't have a lot on him; he hadn't bothered any of them enough to earn special attention so they only really knew the most basic things about him. His former cell-mate knew a bit more, but wasn't too cooperative, and what little he offered wasn't helpful at all.

They'd seen Exile a few times since Sheath's arrest and it hadn't taken him long to replace her, a big furry guy had joined him not a day later, followed quickly by a short man that breathed out a toxic, flammable gas.

Every time they fought him, spotted him, or came just a bit too late to even do that, she'd have another scene to investigate for clues. If it was an actual crime scene the police or S.H.I.E.L.D. would claim the scene, and in the latter case they'd take her and Rayshaun on board, but sometimes neither organization saw much use in searching for clues there. Doreen seemed to enjoy that part of super-heroing whenever they got a chance to do it but sometimes even she would call it a waste of time, which it admittedly was. Just a way for Daisy to distract herself.

She missed Gwen, missed her enough to start seeing glimpses of her everywhere. She'd consider saying Gwen had been seen if the people, on a second glance, looked anything like her. They had different hair color, hairstyles, skin color, and clothing style. There really wasn't anything about them that they had in common with her but somehow, to her, they still looked the same.

She might even be slightly paranoid because about half the time she'd swear the look-a-likes were following her, right up until they weren't going the same way anymore.

As soon as she left the base that evening she saw another look-alike, this one had short, dark hair in a bob cut and a skin-tone too dark to be a suntan but only just dark enough that people would call her black. She wore a red sun-dress.

Soon after Daisy had walked past her the look-alike paid for her drink and left the Café, going in the same direction as her. She almost wanted to have lockjaw just teleport her home or park her car in the base instead, but that was just her paranoia talking.

As usual, because at that point a look-alike had followed her on that path for a couple of days, when they came to her last turn before the spot where she parked her car the look-alike went a different way, this time turning the opposite way. The day before she'd gone straight and the day before that she'd entered a building.

It was starting to look less like paranoia and more like she might be right about them, since they always followed her for two blocks exactly and she could always tell who it would be before hand...

She dismissed the thought, got in her car and drove home.

? had settled into a comfortable new routine. Every day they'd plan their next assaults a bit, go over the paperwork Fisk and the Hand had given them, check out one or two new bases. Once that was done they would go see some of their friends, be it Secret Warriors or their band members.

Sometimes they'd stay for an hour other times just for a few minutes, but it was always nice to see them, even if they didn't talk with their friend. Maybe it was more accurate to say because they didn't talk to them, since they still didn't feel ready for that.

Their late afternoon was spent doing whatever, sometimes they'd follow the Secret Warriors on a mission, other times they'd just spend their time thinking, or going to a library, which hadn't been something either of ?'s parts had wanted to frequent but it was useful when you needed to look things up and didn't have a mobile data plan (she'd usually look up philosophy, things about personal identity, or gender, even if she only understood a third of what she read). Then in the evening they'd follow Daisy for two blocks. ? hoped they weren't scaring her, but they really wanted to see Daisy every day, even if it was just for the short walk from the base to her car.

At night she'd attack the bases she'd scouted out earlier in the day before getting a full night's worth of sleep in an alleyway, staying there well into the morning.

It was comfortable, but that was a problem. In the end they were just prolonging their situation, putting off actually confronting what they were.

That afternoon they had made some progress, which was better than usual really. They had decided that 'I think therefore I am' was a good way to think about themselves, and since they experienced the world as a single individual, that meant that they were a single individual.

Considering how long it took to have that breakthrough they decided to visit Glory again. Not because they were ready to talk about themselves but because if they put it off for any longer they might never do it. And for the same reason they'd have to visit Glory immediately, so they did.

The only problem was that Glory wasn't home yet, it was still early in the afternoon after all, so they went looking. The first place they checked was MJ's house, not only because they recently started dating but because it was a common hang-out spot for the band.

They tried a few more common hang-outs and still found nothing, but through sheer luck they stumbled on her and MJ walking bellow their sulking-roof. And yes, they had a roof where they usually went to sulk, in fact they had several.

They jumped down into an alleyway and changed their surface, a gray hoodie and black jeans.

"Hey," they said as they came out of the alley.

"Gwen?" ? cringed internally. "What are you doing here?" MJ asked.

"I... Can I talk to Glory for a bit?"

"Is it urgent?" Glory asked, glancing towards MJ. She and MJ were holding hands, probably on a date, and they really didn't want to interrupt it with their own troubles.

But they had to. "Kinda?"

She looked to MJ, who frowned.

"Why can't you talk to both of us?" she asked.

"Because she doesn't FIGHT ME on EVERYTHING!" ? shouted. "Sorry. It's... I can't deal with fighting about it. I can't answer questions either, I just need to talk. Talk about things I haven't even wrapped my own head around. Sorry, can I just..."

"It's fine. I know I can be a bit much, and we fight often but, I still love you, you know."

"Yeah. Thanks."

Glory took their hand and pulled them back into the alley.

"So what's up?" Glory asked once they were out of earshot of MJ. ? glanced back, seeing her standing with her back towards them.

"A lot. For starters I'm not 'Gwen' anymore."

"Okaayy."

"Like, I'm Gwen, but also not." They changed their surface again, back to their black one but with their human face still visible. "I'm two in one, human and Symbiote, and I don't think my halves have a normal bond."

"Sorry, what? Can you quickly just explain what 'normal' means in this context? And everything else you just said."

They sometimes forgot that most people didn't spend their spare time reading up on superhero stuff. "Oh. Like, you know Venom, the villain slash vigilantly?"

"Yeah."

"He's a Symbiote, with a capital 'S', an alien that bonds with other creatures. People who have bonded with him usually say that he talks to them in his head and they can control each others' bodies, which can be useful unless he disagrees with what you want to do.

"Anyway I'm not like that. There isn't a voice in Gwen's head there's just me, one personality with the memories and feelings of both halves. The problem is," they said with some desperation, "I have no idea who I am."

"What can I do to help?"

They threw their hands in the air. "I don't know!" All they knew was that they weren't making progress fast enough.

"Hey hey, it's alright," Glory said, gently holding their shoulder. How nonchalant it was, despite her knowing their secret meant more to ? then they thought it would. "Don't worry; I'll help you figure it out."

"Thanks."

"I'm still your friend, even if you aren't just Gwen anymore.

"So," Glory paused. "What should I call you?"

"I honestly have no idea." Glory had stumbled on one of their more ever-present, though relatively small, crises. "What do people usually do when they're suddenly completely different people?"

"I think they'd either go with the same name or just make up a new one."

"Well I'm not sticking with Gwen; it'd feel like I'm leaving out my other half." It was why they'd insisted on thinking of themselves as ? after all.

"What's your other half called?" Glory probed.

"They don't have a name; they'd only really been around for a few days before the bond."

"Then why don't you make up a name for them, then you could combine the two so you don't leave them out."

"That's a good idea." Honestly they should have thought of that themselves, but not speaking to people had made it such a low priority to them… "Thanks."

"No problem. So what else do you need to talk about?"

"Can you tell me what gender means? Like, I've never really thought about it. Gwen just always knew she was a girl and the other one had never heard of the concept before."

"I think it's just if your vague impression of what a boy or girl is matches up with your impression of yourself. And if neither fit you say you're neither."

Going by Gwen's impression of genders they probably fit female about as well as she had, was that all there was to it? "Then, I might be a girl?"

"Okay. If you change your mind that's fine too, you know."

"Thanks." Glory might be going a bit strong with the reassurances, but then that was why they'd chosen to talk to her first.

"Is the Symbiote half also a girl?"

"Yes?" She didn't feel like a part of her wasn't female so that should be right.

"You can take your time. You don't need an answer just yet."

"No, I think she's a girl." It, surprisingly, didn't even feel wrong to call her that, despite never having done it before.

"Does it feel wrong to call her a guy?" Glory was surprisingly insightful to her internal monologue, it was almost scary. Or she was just really good at reading Gwen's face.

"He... Yeah, that doesn't feel right."

"So we're making progress?"

"Yeah. So what do I do about the rest? With who I am and stuff." She didn't even know where to start on that whole mess. What did people define themselves by other than gender?

"Well, a big part of who you are is what you like, so just try things or do whatever, right?"

"I guess."

"And if you have any problems you can just ask your friends to define you, once they've gotten to know the new you."

Except she still couldn't let that happen before she had a basic idea of who she wanted to be first.

"Okay. I think you can go back to your date now."

"You sure? MJ can wait if you have more problems."

? scoffed. "MJ and wait don't really go well together. She's the most impatient person I know."

"She can wait just fine. What she's impatient for is a chance to change the world, not for her girlfriend to come back from talking with a friend."

"Yeah. I guess you're right." She felt a fond smile tug on her lips. "But you still shouldn't leave her waiting, right?" ? gave her a light push.

"Yeah," Glory said as she let herself get shooed back to MJ.

Talking about MJ made Glory's earlier point about asking friends so much more concrete, making her want to talk with her other friends all the sooner.