A/N: Hey everybody! I'm back with another pretty lengthy update! I hope you enjoy this chapter and get some of your possible questions answered :D For anyone who has played the Spider-Man game on PS4, I'm going to say here that I had to take some creative liberties that stray a lil bit away from how things go in the game to make it fit in this story, but I hope you enjoy this chapter regardless :) I have to give a huge shoutout to my beta LadyWintr who has helped me with my Arcane story but we also both went through the entirety of this story and made some edits, which is partially the reason why this chapter took a little bit longer. I don't feel as though you have to go back and re-read the story to continue to follow along, but if you'd like to that is also always an option ;) Anyways, she rocks my socks off and has really helped me improve both stories as well as my writing in general. Much love :') Let me know how you like this chapter, I think it's one of my favorites so far :) Love you all and be safe!
Beca woke with a throbbing migraine, the fluorescent lighting above her not doing anything to make it any better. She was on a stainless steel table which wasn't helpful to the aches in her body, but she felt a million times better than she had before she'd lost consciousness. A quick scan of the room told her she was still at Doctor Octavius' lab, Stacie and Chloe both sitting in seats on each side of the table she was laying on.
They hadn't noticed she had woken up yet, engrossed in their own conversation about the events that had transpired several hours ago. They both looked exhausted, but Chloe even more so than Stacie. Her skin was a little paler than usual, and Beca noticed a thick piece of gauze taped to her arm.
"All things considered, whatever Beca did back there was super cool but I don't understand how it was possible," Stacie said to the redhead. "All of her powers came pretty quickly after she was first bitten by the spider at Oscorp, so I don't know how a new one would randomly show up years later."
"I think," Beca croaked, her mouth feeling like she had swallowed sandpaper. Both women's eyes snapped over to her once they noticed she was awake. Chloe quickly handed her a cup of water to soothe her throat, which she gratefully accepted and knocked back in one gulp. She cleared her throat and continued speaking. "I may be able to answer that question for you, Stace. It's just a hypothesis but it's the only thing that would make sense."
"Before we get into that, how are you feeling?" Stacie asked, switching back to her role as doctor. "Your wounds are healing more rapidly than usual, the bruising on your face is already gone and the wound on your head is already starting to close up… it's like your powers are mutating."
"Mostly feeling achy, but good considering the injuries I sustained," the hero replied. "Where's Aubrey?"
"She was pretty mad about the situation," Chloe explained, biting her lip. "She didn't understand why we didn't bring you to a hospital and I don't think she fully believed our story, but somehow Stacie was able to talk her off a ledge."
"Patching you up was easy enough, but you lost a lot of blood and needed a blood transfusion," Stacie continued on. "Luckily we found out that Little Red Riding Hood over here has the same blood type as you, and we were able to make it happen with the supplies we found around here. For a nuclear physicist, Doc sure is prepared for any situation."
"After Aubrey and Stacie stabilized you, Aubrey wanted to get out of here. But she canceled practice for the next two days, and said that she'd relieve you of some duties until you're fully healed, so you may want to milk it for a little while so she doesn't get suspicious," Chloe finished the retelling of the last few hours. "We'll also probably want to get you out of here in the next little bit before Doctor Octavius comes back and questions what went on here."
"Now that we got that out of the way, can you please tell us what happened to you after you left practice?" Stacie asked.
The better question to ask would have been what didn't happen after she left practice. The events that took place the day prior had answered some of Beca's questions but also opened the door up to so many more. She now knew just how resourceful the mayor was, which wasn't super surprising but what was surprising was how absolutely batshit bonkers he was, and the lengths he would go to achieve whatever sick, twisted schemes he had planned. She also had pretty solid confirmation that Black Cat knew way more than she led on.
"Well, obviously I walked straight into a trap."
-xxxxxxxxxx-
Beca arrived at Black Cat's hideout quickly after leaving practice. The coordinates brought her to a tunnel where the walls were covered in graffiti and to an outsider that's all they would see. However, this wasn't the hero's first game of Cat and Spider, as the antiheroine liked to call it.
She scanned the spray paint covered walls knowing there had to be a hidden entrance somewhere. There was a large art piece of a black and white bulldog that covered a section of the bricks, and next to it was a much smaller painting of a black cat. Beca ran her fingers along the bricks where the cat was painted, feeling the rough stone under her fingertips until she felt a smooth, metallic texture. She pushed down and watched the wall begin to shift, revealing a hidden entrance to the hideout.
It was a moderately sized space, but it was full to the brim with items that Black Cat had stolen in her short time in Barden. Paintings, statues, even historical artifacts littered the room, and Beca had no idea how the woman had been able to pull this off in only a few weeks. On one side of the wall there was a desk with a duffle bag on top of it, and a large monitor hanging on the wall above.
Beca made her way over to the desk, noticing a sticky note on the duffle bag with a drawing of her spider logo. It was an impressive drawing for a quick doodle on a sticky note. The thief clearly had talent, which shouldn't have been too surprising to Beca since Black Cat had a knack for stealing artwork, so it was obviously also a passion of her's. She opened up the bag and found a suit clearly designed for her. It was all black with a deep red spider logo and without even trying it on she knew it would fit her perfectly.
"I see you found your gift," Black Cat's voice said from the monitor above.
The hero was startled by the sudden voice in the room, not expecting the blonde to be watching her, but ultimately she should have known better. It was silly of her to think that the woman would actually be at the hideout, knowing there were often ulterior motives when it came to the antiheroine. Black Cat probably knew that Beca wouldn't have been able to turn a blind eye to all the items stolen and didn't want to risk getting caught. Which begged the question, if the seductress didn't care about the belongings in the hideout being confiscated by the police, what was she really up to?
"What game are you playing, Cat?" Beca asked, not bothering to thank the woman for the new suit. She hated feeling like she was always a step behind Black Cat, and her irritation only increased due to the foul mood she had been in all week.
"Don't be like that, Spider," the other woman cooed. "You already know what my favorite game is."
"Why did you tell me to meet you here if you weren't going to even be here?"
"You know I like to play hard to get," Cat chuckled. "And I know how much you love a good chase."
"Not to rain on your parade, Miss Cat, but I am really not in the fucking mood today," Beca huffed in frustration. "Can you cut the bullshit and tell me what you're actually doing here?"
She could tell she had taken the other woman off guard with that, when she saw Black Cat's cocky smirk slipping for a moment. The blonde stared at her for a long moment, not resorting to her usual impudence whenever speaking to the hero. Beca felt kind of bad for snapping at Cat the way she had, but she was sick of the games every god damn person played on her.
"Sorry, babe, but where's the fun in that?" The thief grinned, back to her usual self, but her tone seemed slightly strained. Beca swore she almost sounded guilty, which caused a knot of uneasiness to settle in her stomach. "Hope you enjoy the suit."
Without another word the screen went dark, leaving the hero in the secret hideout belonging to the woman who was starting to drive her a bit crazy. She huffed in annoyance, feeling much more unsettled than she had before. From the way Black Cat had ended the call, it was obvious to Beca that whatever the other woman was planning was not good, and the brunette was done with feeding into these types of games.
Before leaving the hideout with the duffle bag, because she wasn't going to pass up a new suit even though she was frustrated with the antiheroine, she sent Gail a quick text with the coordinates to her location. After a quick wardrobe change she made her way through the streets of Barden to where it all began.
-xxxxxxxxxx-
"What's that bitch up to?" Stacie interrupted Beca's retelling of yesterday's events.
The petite brunette knew that her best friend already disliked Black Cat, and she knew that this story would only amplify Stacie's disdain for the thief. A brief glance towards Chloe proved that the journalist also had similar feelings for Cat but seemingly not as intensified.
"Well, from what we know Black Cat has feelings for Beca," Chloe said, her brows furrowed in thought as she tried to piece together what the antiheroine's motives could be.
"That's not true!" Beca protested, but it seemed to fall on deaf ears.
"And she's crazy enough to blow up two buildings to gain Beca's attention," Stacie hypothesized with the redhead. She then turned her attention to her injured friend. "Which I'm still pissed at you for letting her go."
"She has information I need," Beca grumbled. "Sometimes she can be a valuable ally."
"She's using you, Beca. You clean up all her messes, and then she gives you crumbs of information to keep her on your good side, so she can then continue to create more messes."
"But she helped me with Shocker a few weeks ago," the hero defended, not sure why she couldn't fully believe that Black Cat was untrustworthy. Ultimately, she knew it. Especially after the thief's behavior yesterday. She'd left all of those items laying around for Beca to find, not caring what the consequences were. That must have meant she was planning something bigger, something she felt guilty about, and something she didn't want the hero to catch onto. Beca had to admit that the woman had been right, she did indeed love a good chase. But what Black Cat hadn't admitted was just how much she loved to be caught, so whatever the seductress was planning that she didn't want Beca to know about, it couldn't be anything good.
"That's what happened to you after Aca-Initiation Night?" Chloe interrupted the two bickering best friends. "You said nobody did anything to you, and that you fell!"
"I couldn't exactly spring something like that on you in the middle of practice," Beca explained. She knew her and Chloe had a lot to talk about, so did her and Stacie, but she just wanted to put those conversations off for a little bit longer. She didn't really know how to feel and hadn't been given much time to process things. She wanted to be angry at her best friend for meddling in her affairs, but also couldn't help but feel relieved now that Chloe knew. But there was also a gnawing feeling of terror in her gut, worried that the woman she was falling for would be in serious danger now that she was aware of her true identity.
"But you weren't going to tell me at all," Chloe pointed out. "Do you not trust me?"
"Of course I do! Chloe, I– it's complicated," the hero stammered. "I wanted to tell you. I just– I was afraid."
"Afraid of what, Becs? Of my reaction?"
Beca's heart broke from the pain laced in the redhead's voice. Even though she was still hurt from their movie incident, she never had any intentions of hurting Chloe. She had been so scared of what the repercussions would be if she did tell the journalist her identity, that she failed to see the damage not telling Chloe could cause.
"No… well, actually a little," the injured woman sighed. She brought her hands up to rub tight circles around her temples, frustrated that her thoughts were coming out of her mouth in a jumbled mess. "Look, Chlo, I know you probably have a lot of questions, and I will answer them all as best as I can, but can we focus on one thing at a time right now?"
"Sorry, Chloe, but Beca is right," Stacie said, shooting a sympathetic smile at the redhead. "We need to figure out what Black Cat is up to. Is there any way she could have heard anything you and Shocker spoke about?"
"I guess she could have heard him mention that the mayor and somebody else were responsible for his release, but that doesn't seem like a lot to go on," Beca pondered.
"She has a lot of connections, Beca. I'm sure it wouldn't be too much of a challenge to figure out a way to get closer to the mayor if she did, in fact, overhear you and Shocker," her best friend explained.
"What would her motive even be to seek him out?" The hero snapped harsher than she had intended. The thought of Black Cat working for the mayor put a bad taste in her mouth. She didn't want to believe it, especially after the sneak peek she had gotten of just how off the rails the mayor was.
"Maybe at first it was for you," Stacie said. "But we all know she will jump ship the moment something better comes along. Maybe the mayor offered her a deal she couldn't refuse."
"She's right, Becs," Chloe practically whispered, probably not wanting to upset Beca any further. "It would explain why she wouldn't tell you her plan and how you felt like she sounded guilty."
Beca stayed quiet for a while, wanting nothing more than to get up and leave this room and this conversation. Her fists were clenched in her lap, and she was thinking about everything that was said between the three of them in the past couple of minutes. She knew the two women sitting next to her were probably correct in their theory, but Beca couldn't help but think there had to be something else to it. She couldn't stand the thought of them being right after the many times she had put her own reputation on the line for Black Cat.
"Do you guys want to hear the rest of the story or not?" Beca grumbled, trying to change the subject back to somewhat safer territory. She knew the two women were just looking out for her, however, she wasn't quite ready to continue this conversation.
"Of course, Becs," Chloe was the one to speak up. She seemed to sense Beca's discomfort, allowing the hero some reprieve from the current conversation, and Beca was grateful that the redhead wasn't going to push further. "What happened next?"
"When I arrived at the AllenCorp facility, I finally came face to face with the man who is responsible for all this chaos."
-xxxxxxxxxx-
When Beca arrived at the alley leading to the AllenCorp facility, she placed her Spider-Bot down before climbing up to her usual perch to survey the area. She frowned at her phone as she watched her Spider-Bot navigate through the area that usually had several guards, but noticed that nobody was there. An uneasy feeling settled in her gut and she knew that something was off. Alarms were going off in her mind, telling her that she should forget she was ever here and come back another time when she had a clearer mindset.
But she didn't turn back. She ignored her gut instinct, which always ended up biting her in the ass, a fact she ignored as well, and continued investigating. She put her phone away and swung down from her perch, making her way towards the entrance of the warehouse. There were still no signs of other people, not even guarding the entrance.
When she pushed the door to the facility open, she saw the barrels that she had seen the prior week filling up a majority of the space. Curious to see what was kept inside the barrels, she went over to one and carefully opened the lid to find… it was empty. She opened a few more to find the same result, there was nothing being contained in them.
"What the fuck is going on here?" She mumbled to herself as she continued to search the warehouse.
She continued her search for any clues as to what was going on and noticed a door that led to another area of the facility, and decided there wasn't any harm in checking it out. There was a padlock on the door but instead of searching the area for keys she decided to use her superhuman strength and rip the padlock right off. She let it clatter to the ground, not caring about manners in a potential criminal's base of operation.
She gasped as she took in the room, which was actually a very advanced lab. There were tanks of spiders covering a vast majority of the area, and she also noticed several screens that had images of her with descriptions of her abilities. As she investigated further, she realized that it seemed as though the mayor was attempting to reverse engineer Beca's abilities.
She continued to rummage through anything she could find in the lab. A folder labeled "GR-27 Codename: Devil's Breath" caught her attention and she decided to take a further look. She flipped through the file and found that this so-called "Devil's Breath" was designed to be a cure. A cure for cancer, genetic disorders, birth defects, and more, but it wasn't ready yet, and in its current form it would kill anyone that was exposed to it. It was a "cure" based on Beca's genetic code.
"I've been watching you for some time now, Spider-Girl," a booming voice coming from one of the monitors in the lab startled her out of her thoughts. So much so that she jumped and knocked one of the tanks over in the process, so that the scientifically modified spiders that had been inside now crawled through the lab.
"What the fuck is up with people popping up on monitors today?" Beca huffed in frustration, now looking at the screen to finally come face to face with who had to be Martin Allen. He had a striking resemblance to someone she knew, but she couldn't put her finger on it. He was middle-aged, but looked quite young still. He had brown hair slicked back neatly, brown eyes, was clean shaven, and wore a suit that probably cost more than Beca would ever make in her entire life. "Don't people know how to have a face to face conversation these days?"
"Charming, Spider-Girl," he chuckled a bit manically, which caused a shiver to run down Beca's spine. "You really are the perfect specimen. I like when they have a bit of fight in them. It makes things far more interesting."
"How did you get all this information on me anyways?" Beca interrupted his weird monologue. She always feared that someone would find out who she was and turn her into a lab experiment. Turns out nobody needed to find out her identity to do that, as the mayor already had.
"As I said, I've been watching you for some time now," he continued, grinning from ear to ear. "Norman Osborne sends his greetings, by the way."
Beca felt like she had been punched in the gut, all the breath in her lungs caught in her chest at the mention of one of her former enemies from New York. The man who was responsible for her powers in the first place. She had been bitten by a radioactive spider from Osborne's own sick and twisted experiments while on a school trip.
"How do you know Norman?"
"He's my cousin."
"Oh, so crazy runs in the family? Great," Beca snapped. The gravity of the situation hit her like a sack of bricks. If they were family and had all of the same connections, Beca and the rest of the city of Barden had a much bigger problem on their hands than they first realized. "How did you even contact him? He's in Riker's,"
"You think that sorry excuse of a cell would keep him from continuing his operation?" The mayor laughed sardonically at the hero. "How do you think we got Shocker out of Riker's? We had some help from his good friend Mister Negative."
"Li? B-but they hate each other. Norman's experiments on him caused Li to turn into Mister Negative," Beca questioned, trying to put the pieces together. Norman had also been researching something that would put the rest of New York in danger if it was exposed to the public, the same research that gave Li his powers, and very similar to the research that was in front of her. "Wait a minute, you're continuing Norman's work? Why the hell would you be doing that?"
"Both of our children suffer from Oshtoran Syndrome. It's genetic but seems to have skipped over Norman and I. This research could save them. I just need more time," Martin explained, and for a second Beca felt for him. She couldn't imagine what it would feel like to know your child was dying, but she knew that she wouldn't put an entire city at risk to try to find a cure. There had to be another way. "I have modified the cure, it will no longer cause another situation like the one with Li to happen, but it is still lethal in its current form."
"Listen, man. I feel for you, I really do, but if this gets into the wrong hands it could kill thousands of people, possibly more. It's not a cure, you've created your own disease," Beca tried to reason with him.
"You will soon learn that you will do anything to protect the ones you love. Even if that means turning into a monster yourself," he said. "Besides, that's why I need you. Your genetics could be the key to finishing the cure. Don't you want to save lives, Spider?"
"Not at this cost. Who are you to decide who gets to live and who gets to suffer? You're not a God."
"That's quite the high-horse you're on. Don't you do that every day? Get involved in business that isn't yours to be everybody's Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Girl. You're no different than me," Martin snarled, a nefarious glint in his eyes. Beca knew he was completely off the rails, and that made him all the more dangerous.
She was distracted from Martin when she felt a slight pinch and a stinging sensation on her arm. She clamped her other hand down on the affected area and when she pulled it back she saw one of those stupid spiders squished in her hand. The material of the suit Black Cat had given her was lightweight, so the spider had easily bitten through the material.
"Well, fuck," Beca whispered, a million thoughts racing through her mind at what problems could arise from another lab spider biting her.
"I have two options for what I can do with you," Martin continued, not seeming to be aware of Beca's current dilemma. "I can either reveal who you truly are and then take proprietary ownership of you to complete my research, or I could just kill you. Your body, dead or alive, should give me enough information to finish my work."
Beca began to panic. She was being threatened by an absolute psychopath, and who knows what kind of adverse effects that spider bite was going to cause. She looked around to figure out a quick escape route and saw a window on the farther side of the lab, but other than going back to the entrance she had walked in from, that seemed like her only option.
"Right now, the latter of the two seems easiest," the mayor said. She saw him pull out what appeared to be a detonator, a villainous grin on his face as his thumb hovered over the button on the detonator. "And I have you exactly where I want you."
Beca shot a web and zipped towards the window on the far side of the lab, not caring about the hazard of flinging herself through a shattering window, it was better than the alternative. She got through the window just as the building was engulfed in a fiery explosion, but the impact from the explosion flung her out further into the parking lot outside of the facility. A metal beam from the building smacked her in the head, causing her to lose her bearings.
She hit the cement hard, her skull taking another serious blow as it connected with the concrete. Another metal beam, or maybe it was the same one that had hit her before, landed on her torso, pinning her down. Her vision was swimming as she weakly tried to push the beam off of her, but it was no use. She could feel her eyes rolling in the back of her head as she tried to fight to stay conscious, but her attempt was futile. The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was the destruction left behind caused by a crazed man that would stop at nothing to get exactly what he wanted.
-xxxxxxxxxx-
"I knew that scrap of fabric wouldn't protect you from shit," Stacie grumbled as Beca had finished her story.
"Stace, enough with the pissing competition between you and Black Cat," Beca sighed, not having the energy to deal with the one-sided rivalry between Stacie and the antiheroine. "At this point, Cat is the least of our concerns. You know how hard it was to stop Norman, and Martin seems even more off the rails than him."
"I know that, Beca, but it also doesn't help that someone you consider as an ally may be helping this nutcase with his deranged plans," her best friend quipped back.
"I don't think either of you see just what's going on here," Chloe piped up. "I'm with Beca on this one, Stacie, Black Cat isn't nearly as much of a concern. Martin has clearly been spreading his own rumors about dumping toxic waste in the water supply to divert attention from what he's actually doing. It would explain all the empty barrels you found, Becs. And dumping toxic waste in the water is a much better rumor to navigate around than creating a deathly disease."
"Well, well, well," Stacie grinned at the redhead. "It seems like three geniuses are in the building."
Beca watched a small blush and a bashful smile form on Chloe's face from the compliment, and it caused butterflies to erupt in her stomach. She wanted nothing more than to reach out and hold the redhead's hand, but she knew that they still had so much to talk about, and she wasn't sure what was appropriate considering their odd predicament.
"Nice thinking, Red," Beca smiled at her instead. "At least that's one less thing we have to worry about."
"Toxic waste would be a much better alternative, though," Stacie sighed. "What are we going to do? Where do we start?"
"Well, he destroyed the one place we knew where to look, and left no evidence behind," Beca grumbled. "So I don't know how much help it would be to tell Gail. Maybe I should at least give her a head's up and she may have information on where we can look."
"Who's Gail?" Chloe asked.
"She's the one that brought me here," the hero explained. "The new captain of the police force in Barden. We worked together in New York."
"So let's get everything straight," her best friend said. "Black Cat is potentially working with Mister Looney Tunes, you were bitten by another spider on steroids that gave you these new powers, and we're dealing with a wannabe mad scientist who could kill everyone if his 'cure' gets into the wrong hands. Did I miss anything?"
"Nope, sounds about right," Beca chuckled. Unfortunately, this was nothing new to her, and she couldn't help but find humor in her chaotic life.
"Fuck," Chloe groaned, surprising the two other women with the foul language. "You two deal with this kind of stuff on a regular basis?"
"That's what happens when you're friends with a superhero. You get used to it," Stacie smiled. She then looked at the time and noticed it was close to when Doctor Octavius arrived. "I have some stuff I have to clean up here, but you two should probably get out of here and get some rest."
"I can drive you back to your dorm, Becs," Chloe offered, a pleading look in her eyes that Beca couldn't say no to even if she had wanted to.
"That sounds good," Beca smiled at the redhead. "Thanks, Chlo."
Beca slowly got off of the table, already feeling much better just after the short time they had all chatted. Her migraine was starting to dissipate, and her body didn't feel as sore. She stretched, careful not to disrupt her stitches, and felt her shoulders and back pop in relief.
"Beca, no funny business until you are healed," Stacie ordered. She grabbed the hero and pulled her into a gentle hug, unlike her usual smothering hugs that nearly suffocated Beca with her breasts. She said her next comment quietly so Chloe wouldn't overhear her. "We'll talk later. Fix things with your girl."
"I'll call you later, Stace."
She made her way over to Chloe who was patiently waiting for her at the door of the lab. She forced back her nerves, knowing this conversation wasn't going to be easy. The three of them had gone over a lot of information, but hadn't addressed the elephant in the room. Chloe seemed to take the news of her identity relatively well, but Beca feared that it was a front the redhead had created while in Stacie's presence. She walked out of the lab with Chloe following behind, dreading the conversation that would completely change their relationship, and the hero wasn't sure if it would be a change for the better.
The ride back to Beca's dorm was spent in a slightly uncomfortable silence. Chloe had kept the radio playing and quietly sang along, but no words were shared between the two. As they entered the empty dorm, the hero was thankful for the umpteenth time that her roommate was nowhere in sight. Chloe perched on her bed and Beca took a seat in her desk chair, the brunette couldn't avoid the topic any longer.
"Listen, Chlo–"
"Becs, I–"
They both paused as they realized they were trying to speak at the same time, appearing to be on the same page with not enjoying the tense silence between them. Beca wasn't even really sure what to say. Where would she even begin?
"Sorry," Beca smiled softly. "You can start."
"I just wanted to apologize for what happened the other week. I didn't mean to hurt you, Beca," Chloe began, and the brunette could see the turmoil in her eyes from the events of the past week. "You mean so much to me, and it was all a stupid misunderstanding. I can't believe I didn't see it before."
"See what before?" Beca asked in confusion.
"I can't believe I hadn't seen who you really are," Chloe sighed. "I had my suspicions, I had hoped, but I wasn't sure and it made me feel so confused about my feelings."
"Wait, you had hoped that I was Spider-Girl?"
That is not what Beca had been expecting. Her own self doubts had caused her to think that Chloe wouldn't accept her, but ultimately she should have known better. The older woman had always been an exception to everything else in Beca's life. When people feared Spider-Girl, Chloe embraced her, welcomed her, helped her. Chloe was interested in more than just the fact that Spider-Girl was a superhero, she had made an effort to actually get to know her with or without the mask.
"I told you during Aca-Initiation night that I thought you two were similar. Broody and sarcastic, but also, so very caring and smart and talented. My confusion stemmed from the fact that I thought I was falling for two different people," Chloe explained. Her gaze locked with Beca's and the brunette could see nothing but tenderness. "But this whole time I was only falling for you."
"You– you have feelings for me?" Beca choked out, feeling like she couldn't breathe from the admission she just heard.
"I told you that I did the night that we kissed."
"I thought you were just trying to let me down easy. I thought that you thought it was a mistake."
"I wouldn't lie to you about something like that, Becs," Chloe murmured, shifting closer to Beca so she could take the hero's hand in her's. "That kiss was everything I had been wanting. I just– I didn't want to be unsure of my feelings for you, and now I know just how sure of my feelings I am."
"I didn't tell you who I was not because I didn't trust you," Beca started to explain, finally being able to find the words to hopefully quell some of the questions Chloe must have had. "I trust you just as much as I trust Stacie. I just… wanted to keep you safe. I didn't want to drag you into this craziness, and I don't want anything to happen to you."
"We were already working together, though. Knowing your identity or not, I kind of made myself a potential target by becoming your partner in crime," Chloe smiled, warm and endearing. "Besides, I think I was pretty close to figuring it out anyways before Stacie intervened."
"Oh, yeah?" Beca teased. She moved from the chair to sit next to Chloe, feeling most of the tension gone between the two of them as the conversation flowed easily. She'd missed this. Not talking to the journalist felt physically painful for her, and not being on the receiving end of Chloe's touchiness was something she wouldn't admit to anyone else that she had missed. "Care to explain how you were going to figure out my biggest secret?"
"For starters, there were too many coincidences in the things Spider-Girl and I talked about that ended up being brought up in our conversations," the redhead began her explanation. "And then you had this weird habit of disappearing, and I'd run into Spider-Girl not too long later at a crime scene. And don't even get me started about the Shocker attack and you showing up to practice wounded. I'm an investigative journalist, Becs. It's my job to figure out mysteries and unravel the truth."
Beca chuckled at the comment, and lifted her gaze to meet Chloe's. She could see nothing but tenderness and honesty in the cerulean eyes staring back at her, but still couldn't quite shake the fear that was gnawing at her.
"You're not scared of me?" Beca asked, feeling that last bit of insecurity still lingering in her heart. "You're not scared you're going to get hurt by associating with me?"
"Beca," Chloe breathed out, reaching up with her free hand to gently caress the brunette's cheek. "I've never felt safer with anyone in my life."
This time it was Beca who leaned in and captured Chloe's lips in a breathtaking kiss, no longer afraid of rejection after the other woman's confession. It was soft and sweet and everything she needed after the emotional and physical turmoil this past week had caused. There was still so much they would have to talk about, more questions that needed to be answered, but it all could wait. In that moment, they just needed each other, needed to know that they were there and together and nothing would get in their way. Beca felt like she could do anything as long as Chloe was by her side. Her life was extremely dangerous and there probably would never be a time when it wasn't, especially after finding out everything she had in the past twenty-four hours, but that didn't matter to her right now. She knew that she had people she could trust, she knew that they would get to the bottom of it all somehow, and she knew without a doubt in her mind that with Chloe Beale by her side, she was safe.
