Glory woke up to a few of messages in the band group chat. And one from her girlfriend, which she checked first.

MJ❤️

Yesterday 23:56

[I know she already told you what's up, but I'm dying to find out]

[Try to be there]

Who has told her about what? She checked the band chat.

[Gwen Yesterday 23:55

I'm back.]

She shot out of her bed. It had only been a couple of days since they talked, but Not-Gwen had been clear about not being ready yet. Apparently things had changed.

[MJ❤️

Band meting 8 am, Gwen's place]

[You'd better be there.]

[Gwen

Ok]

[Betty Today 00:02

?]

She sent a message back,

[Glory Today 07:14

I'll be there]

and then went to get breakfast.

She knocked on Not-Gwen's door (she still didn't know what she should call her friend, so that would have to do). It was Captain Stacey who opened it.

"GWEN, GLORY'S HERE."

"Hi, Captain Stacey. Is she still in bed?"

"Yeah." He yawned. "We stayed up quite late just watching TV together. Don't even remember falling asleep, but she somehow made it to her bed." He opened the door to let her in.

They didn't hang out at Not-Gwen's house very often, but often enough for her to be relatively comfortable on the Stacey couch. Neither of the others were there.

"Is the rest of the band coming too or is it just you?"

"All of us. We haven't spoken to her in two weeks so MJ got all excited and called a band meeting here. We might steal her away to practice afterwards."

"Alright then, you girls have fun." The captain meandered over to the kitchen and started preparing his and Gwen's breakfast.

It didn't take long before the other two showed up, short enough time that Not-Gwen was still in her room, assuming she hadn't left the house on Ghost-Spider business.

"Hey, Tiger," MJ said as she crawled onto the couch next to her.

"Hey yourself, MJ." She kissed the other girl, who retaliated in kind.

She didn't know what it was about MJ's lips that made them feel so good. It could be because she took such good care of them, they were really soft and smooth, it could be the way MJ's hands tangled in her hair that made her feel so wanted whenever they kissed, could be MJ's smell that enveloped her, or it was just MJ herself, the fact that it was the girl Glory liked so much, maybe even loved.

"Not to interrupt you two in your couple-time, but am I just supposed to stand here?" Betty asked, standing at the foot end of the couch. Glory hadn't even realized that they had stretched to take up the whole thing in their impromptu make-out session.

"Sorry," she said as she pulled her legs in.

"You're lucky you're my friend or I'd retaliate for you interrupting us," MJ said, but she still did as she was asked.

"Have you girls all had breakfast?" Captain Stacey asked from the kitchen doorway.

"Yeah." Glory answered. MJ nodded but Betty stood up.

"Actually I haven't, I kind of woke up late for the band meeting." She hurried to the kitchen, leaving Glory and MJ alone on the couch again.

"Right. Help yourself to some eggs and bacon then. And I do take requests if you're willing to wait some." Captain Stacey poked his head out again. "Also, congratulations on the relationship you two, didn't know you started dating."

Glory felt her face heat up; but MJ, still half on top of her, just beamed the most brilliant smile at him. "Thanks!"

Ten minutes after Betty had left them alone MJ started to get annoyed. It was one thing to miss band practice because she was saving lives, but to miss a meeting when it was in her own damn house was too much.

She gave Glory one last kiss before heading upstairs to bang on Gwen's door.

"Wake up sleepy head; you're late for band meeting."

When no answer came, she decided to open the door then jumped back with a shriek.

Inside there must have been a few hundred, no probably closer to ten thousand, spiders. Some of them were dead, lying upside down with their legs curled in, others were still moving about, there were even some on Gwen.

She slammed the door shut.

"Is there a problem?" Captain Stacey was charging up the stairs, with his service gun in hand.

"No! No, no no no. Everything's fine. Let me just..." She opened the door, careful not to show the inside to him, and got inside.

Closing the door behind her she turned to once again see the room full of spiders. She moved closer to Gwen careful not to step on any of the millions of giant spiders crawling on the floor. Nope nope nope , her mind kept repeating the word.

She couldn't take it, it was too gross and creepy, but she was sure these weren't normal spiders. For one: there weren't any spiders that big in the US, let alone New York, at least none she'd ever heard of, for another: they were in Ghost- Spider 's room so odds were it had something to do with Gwen's super-heroics.

She poked her friend on the least spider-covered part, her left shoulder. "Wake up!"

Gwen shot up, and if she hadn't known any better she could have sworn Gwen's black top had loved on its own. "Whu?" She looked around.

"Gwen if this has anything to do with your job you're gonna have to get rid of them fast, your dad's on the other side of your door with his gun!"

"Why does he have his gun out?" Gwen stretched.

"Because I screamed when I saw all of this!" She gestured to all of the spiders.

"Oh." Suddenly every spider in the room moved towards her, towards Gwen . They even dragged some of the dead ones along, which was just so, so wrong, but it got much worse once she looked back to Gwen and saw them melting into her ! "Everything's fine dad, you can go back down!" Gwen called towards her door with all the energy of someone who was going to bed, not waking up.

"Can you explain what I just saw?" Her mind was not processing this well.

"Sure." Gwen's stomach grumbled. "After breakfast."

MJ waited impatiently as Gwen gulped down her food. Glory was trying to distract her but all she could think about was how the spiders had melted on Gwen's legs, dissolving into black tendrils that seemed to be absorbed by her skin.

Maybe if it had only been one or two she'd be fine after some mild therapy, but there had been hundreds, thousands, of spiders.

"So do you know why MJ screamed earlier?" Captain Stacey asked in the kitchen. MJ and Glory were on the couch, so she couldn't see them, but she could imagine Gwen getting panicked trying to explain that away.

"Eh, probably didn't know just how chaotic I look when I'm sleeping," Gwen said sounding perfectly calm. "I'm sure she sleeps like a model in a photo-shoot so seeing how a normal person looks after sleeping must have been a shock."

"Don't lie to me, Gwen. I'm a cop I know when you do." His tone wasn't harsh, he wasn't angry. "Was there someone else in your room? Maybe a boy?"

The sound of Gwen eating stopped. "Just drop it dad. It wasn't anything you need to worry about, okay."

"Alright, sweetie."

"I'm going back to bed." Gwen left the kitchen, walking past them on her way to the stairs.

"What?! What about the band meeting!" Gwen had promised to explain the spiders after she had gotten breakfast, and MJ needed that explanation if she hoped to get over the trauma within a lifetime.

"I'm not gonna sleep, just... Give me a moment then come to my room, we can talk there." She disappeared up to her room and slammed her door shut.

Captain Stacey came up to them, looking at her.

"Did I say something wrong? Was it because I asked if it was a boy before asking if it was a girl?"

Was he asking her if his daughter was gay? "You know I couldn't answer that question with a 'yes', regardless of what I thought, right. "

"Sorry." He looked away.

She sighed. "I still don't think that's it though, since the room was empty and you were totally cool with me and Glory making out on your couch." She got a light smack from her girlfriend at the reminder but pushed on. "It really wasn't a big deal though so just let her have her secrets."

"Alright." He rubbed his neck. "I'll be in the garage if anybody needs me, have fun you girls."

"I don't know what Glory has told you."

"Not a thing," MJ said.

"Only that you were fine," Betty added.

"She means after that," MJ said. Betty gave them all a questioning look.

"Okay, I'll cover the basics first then."

Gwen told them about these aliens called Symbiotes, about how they 'bond' with other creatures in a way they consider positive, but which usually ends with them becoming a super-villain, like Venom, though he might be good now?

That was when it hit MJ; the spiders had melted into black tendrils, just like Venom's. Gwen had gotten a Symbiote. MJ wasn't sure how to feel about that, but Gwen seemed to be fine with it, and Glory who already knew thought it was fine so it probably was... She just hoped her friend wouldn't suddenly turn into a super-villain.

She also told them that bond is as much mental, both telepathic and emphatic, as it is physical, and that Symbiotes often had some different abilities, especially the ones who had become lab experiments. She explained how a Symbiote had bonded with Gwendolyn, and how that particular Symbiote mentally bonded more completely than normal, to the point that it became impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

MJ tried to wrap her head around what that meant, tried to understand what that meant for how Gwen experienced the world. She talked about Gwendolyn and Gwenom as though they were different people from her, because she wasn't like either of them had been before they bonded, but she was also, at the same time, both of them, behaving as her two halves would have wanted.

MJ asked a lot of questions about that before Gwen could finally get around to telling her about the spiders. Not because she wasn't curious about the spider thing, even after understanding that they were a part of Gwenom, but because understanding, and being able to support, Gwen was important enough for her to delay it a bit.

Well, that and because she was curious about what it was like to be two people in one.

Gwen then explained that she also had some new powers as a result, both the thing with the spiders and camouflage powers. Even the clothes she was wearing was actually just her Symbiote half using her camouflage powers.

She even explained some things about her new powers which might be dangerous if her enemies found out and what it was like to suddenly be a swarm of spiders.

"So you changed your mind about sticking with Gwen?" Glory asked when Gwen was done talking, putting her hand on Gwen's shoulder.

"Yeah, it would be hard to explain to George why I suddenly want him to call me something completely different."

"Who's George?" Betty asked from the floor next to MJ, leaning on Gwen's desk.

"Gwendolyn's dad," Gwen answered.

"You call him George now?!" That would be even harder to explain!

"Not to his face , but yeah. Just until I figure out how family works for me."

"Well I understand the idea behind it, but isn't it harder to differentiate you this way, I got used to you being a different person by calling you Not-Gwen in my head, but it's easy to forget that you aren't Gwendolyn this way," Glory said.

"I know, but it's the best I could come up with before my team captured me and forced me to pick something."

"And you're sure you don't want to tell your dad?" MJ asked.

"I'd be the same as telling him about my super-powers, and I think he might figure out I'm Ghost-Spider after that. So yeah, I'm sure."

Her morning was pretty uneventful after that. Her friends had a small celebration at her return, she paid Glory back the money she borrowed, and then they all went to MJ's place for practice. And she only had to stop one purse snatcher during the whole thing.

Gwen sat down at her drum set and waited for the others to be ready before hitting her drumsticks against one another.

"3, 2, 1..."

As soon as she hit the drum she felt a jolt of pain and stopped. She tried again, gentler, but she still felt it all over her surface.

"What's wrong, Gwen?" MJ asked.

"I- All Symbiotes are weak to sound but I didn't think drumming would hurt."

"WHAT?" Betty was the first to react. "Does that mean you can't be our drummer anymore?"

"I... I hope not. It doesn't hurt too much just here, but it might be a problem on a stage."

She expected to hear from their leader, MJ never missed an opportunity to talk, but nothing came. MJ was speechless. She stared at the drummer with open shock.

"Let's just practice for now, I'll think of something later." After missing six sessions she didn't want to miss this make up one.

After band practice she had team practice with the Secret Warriors which was in the early afternoon on weekends. Daisy still hadn't found anything on Exile's team, but that didn't stop the team from trying their best to find him, with no success.

She went back home slightly earlier than usual, she would skip patrol but still wanted to catch the Bodega Bandit, he'd robbed the Dollar Dog too often without her stopping him. She would have gone there earlier, as soon as she got her powers back really, but she'd been too worried about Murderdock. About him laying a trap for her.

She'd allowed herself to watch her friends whenever they crossed paths, but she hadn't moved with any real pattern, it'd be too easy to lay a trap for her if she did, and the Bodega Bandit? He was a man of habit, with a strict schedule when it came to crime.

She waited a good ten minutes before he eventually slumped towards the dollar dog.

"Your corn dogs or your life..." She didn't hear him say it, but she saw his mouth move through the window, and it's what he always said.

The clerk gave him two corn-dogs which he started eating in the store.

"Are you going to pay for those?" she asked when she entered.

The Bodega Bandit turned around. "Oh. I asked him to put it on my tab. I don't have the energy to rob him today."

So her lip-reading might not be very good, but in her defense, he was speaking sluggishly, making it extra hard to read his lips.

"What's going on with you? Where's all your energy gone?"

"I don't know..."

The owner gestured for her to come closer. "He's been getting worse ever since last time you were here. You know, when his dog died."

"Oh." She felt more than just a pang of sympathy for him. They weren't friends or anything but, with the exception of the past two weeks, they talked every time he robbed the Dollar Dog, meaning most days. "Hey, how about tomorrow we visit a shelter and see about getting you a new pal?"

He shook his head. "No dog could replace him." Tears started rolling frown his cheek.

"No, no, please don't cry. I'm not talking about replacing Bandito, I know that's not possible, I just thought you could use a new partner. A friend to spend your time with, so you don't have to be alone."

He hugged her and, despite being uncomfortable, she didn't have the heart to pry him off.

"There there." She patted his back.

When Gwen came home she sat down next to her dad on the couch and gave him a hug.

"Hi dad."

"Welcome home Gwendy." The nickname hurt a bit, reminded her of what she was keeping from him, but she tried not to react. "I've been thinking today, about what you'll need to do if you really want to join S.H.I.E.L.D." Gwen didn't know what to say. She had been serious, and she had hoped that George would help her study for the theoretical parts of the test, but she hadn't expected him to do it so fast.

"I called some of my army veteran friends," George continued, "to make a workout schedule for you. It's in your room, on your desk. And I'll have time on most weekends to help you with everything else, if that's what you want."

Gwen had thought that George might give her some books on it, but he'd gone and made it a father-daughter bonding thing and she couldn't be happier.

"Thank you." She hugged him again. She wanted to do more, but she didn't know what.

"It'll be though, Gwen. If you're serious about this you might need to stop going to band practice to get fit on time for whatever entrance test they'll ask you to take. Failing that you could go to the police academy first, since they recruit a fair number of their people from our officers."

"Thank you," She repeated. "I'll make sure to study whatever you teach me." She could pretty much disregard the training schedule though; her super-strength and stamina were more than enough for S.H.I.E.L.D., and she even knew how to fight, meaning she'd probably have time for the band, but not that much since she still had to practice and work with the Secret Warriors.

"Don't forget about school, they'll want to see you excel in many things."

"I'll... try." Aaaand her schedule was overfull.

The next day she spent almost ten hours with George, five in the morning and five in the evening, just going over all the things she'd need to learn and getting some lessons in detective work. It was fun, a challenge she wasn't used to but still had enough skill in to not feel completely useless at.

In between studying she visited the Bodega Bandit. He insisted that he didn't want a dog but she managed to convince him to go to a pet shop with her and after an hour they left with a new friend for him, a hamster.

She made sure to tell him that hamsters aren't fit for crimes, or guard duty outside which is what Bandito's job had always been, but he'd probably still rob the Dollar Dog and Pine Cone would almost certainly come with him.

After that she had practice with the Secret Warriors, spent some time trying to figure out what to do about her problem with loud sounds, and had band practice. She concluded that earplugs wouldn't work then returned home to study some more.