Reckless
There is no news of Spiderman that night. Gwen is relieved that she ran into Peter in the hallway earlier, or she would no doubt have been wondering the whole evening, sitting at the dinner table and nodding and tapping her foot and trying not to check her phone every five seconds while her mother asked everyone in a diplomatic matter how their weeks went.
"How's the semester going?" her mother asks as Gwen helps her collect the dishes.
Gwen sucks a preparatory breath through her teeth. "Good," she says evenly, because she knows where this conversation is headed.
"Meet any new friends?"
Gwen scrubs at a particularly stubborn piece of melted cheese on one of her brother's plates. "Sure. New classes and all. Still hanging out with MJ."
This isn't the answer her mother was searching for, which usually ushers in the second phase of this all too predictable conversation that happens nearly every time a new semester starts: "Any boy friends?"
Gwen rolls her eyes in response, earning a sigh from her mother.
"I just don't understand, Gwendolyn. You're pretty, you're smart, you're in these biology and chemistry classes with all these handsome, eligible young men—what's the problem?"
The cheese finally comes unglued from the plate and slides down into the sink, but Gwen keeps scrubbing at it as if it's still there. She takes a breath. She won't make the same mistake of overreacting to these questions like she has in the past. She tries to see it from her mother's perspective, her mother who grew up in an upper middle class family of seven sisters whose ultimate goals were to find husbands to support and protect them.
Gwen thinks it's a stupid notion. Her mother is certainly tough on her own, something that Gwen knew long before her father died and left her to raise four children alone. But Gwen sees that her mother wants that same stability for Gwen, wants a secure, happy future like the one that got taken from her too soon.
More pressing, though, is her mother's nagging implication that there is something wrong with her—why else wouldn't she be interested in boys? More than once she has expressed concern that Gwen hasn't brought anybody home since "that Parker boy"; what she tries hard not to say is that Gwen hasn't brought anybody home since her father died.
Gwen looks up at her mother, trying to hide her exasperation, but this time something in her mother's face seems different. Pinched, and hopeful. Gwen remembers, not for the first time, that she is her mother's only daughter.
"I'm—I'm going to get coffee with someone next week."
Her mother's face lights up like a beacon. "Coffee?" she asks, setting her eyes back on the dishes, trying too hard to sound casual.
"Yeah." Gwen's lips feel a little bit thick from the lie. "His name's Owen."
"Owen what?"
"Uh," says Gwen. "I'm—I'm not sure." She wracks her brain but she honestly can't remember, which only makes her feel another twinge of guilt toward him. Not only does she have no interest in him, but here she is using him behind his back, and not even effectively enough to remember the most basic of information about him. She never intends to actually go on this coffee date but it seems wrong anyway.
"Where did you meet him?"
"OsCorp," says Gwen, feeling more uncomfortable as the conversation progresses.
Her mother smiles a little at this. "And he's age appropriate, right?"
Gwen never quite knows what her mother means by "age appropriate," as she seems to preach to Gwen about the merits of dating older men as often as she warns against them, so Gwen just says, "He's a year older than I am."
The discussion ends as soon as her youngest brother races in with some issue about something that didn't tape on the TiVo, and Gwen is all too happy to duck out of the kitchen and go watch TV with her brothers to avoid any further interrogation. Her mother joins them sometime later, looking chipper. When the theme song to one of the younger boys' favorite shows come on, she even hums a little.
It should make Gwen feel better for the lie, but somehow she only feels worse.
MJ knocks on Gwen's door around ten o'clock on Saturday and says without much ceremony, "I didn't get the part. We're going out tonight, let's go."
Gwen knows better than to question her friend when she gets this determined and melodramatic, so she dutifully pulls her hair out of its ponytail, splashes the visible moisturizer off of her face, and swaps her sweatpants for a leather miniskirt.
"Did you get a part at all?" she asks, shoving on a high heel.
MJ shakes her head, jittering at the door, looking impatient to leave. "There's this bar, like, five blocks from here—I know a guy who will let us in."
When doesn't MJ know a guy, Gwen wonders. "Lead the way," says Gwen.
On the way there, Gwen already knows exactly how the evening will transpire, the same way it does every time MJ gets in one of her moods. MJ will arrive at the bar all giggly and showy, letting all the college co-eds admire her so she has some sense of validation after getting rejected. She will be coy, she will counter everyone's remarks wittily, and she might go as far as to rub one of the boys' shoulders, but inevitably she will remember that she isn't as bold as she thinks and come cowering back to Gwen and telling her she wants to go home.
Gwen will sit in the corner, nursing a beer, looking as unwelcoming and unavailable as she possibly can.
What's funny is that MJ likes to sneak into these bars, likes to make grand proclamations about getting drunk, but Gwen has never seen MJ with a drink in her hand. Gwen suspects that despite all the bravado she hasn't ever gone very far romantically, either. But that's part of being dragged along on the Mary Jane Show. What you see is rarely what you get.
On the way home MJ at least seems a lot happier than she was when she arrived at Gwen's door. For all her theatrics, Gwen at least appreciates that MJ has never been much of a crier or one to feel sorry for herself, one of the few things the girls have in common.
She grabs Gwen's hand, pointing at a convenience store near Gwen's apartment. "Let's get some ice cream," she suggests.
The idea isn't appealing at first, but MJ's excitement about it is infectious. "Why not?" says Gwen.
Approximately three minutes later, when they obliviously walk right into a convenience store hold-up, Gwen finds a reason why not.
"Don't move," says the man, waving the gun in Gwen and Mary Jane's direction.
Gwen freezes because she knows she is supposed to. She is afraid—she can feel the rapid pulse of her heart in her chest, the tremor of her hands, the bulging disbelief of her eyes. But she feels somehow disconnected, watching this man point a gun at her, as if she is watching it happen to somebody else.
Beside her MJ is similarly rigid. She can her the other girl breathing, sucking in air as if her throat has constricted. She drops Gwen's hand.
"I said don't move!"
He swings the gun even closer to them—MJ squeaks and Gwen flinches, but other than that they obey. Gwen watches as he points the gun back to the pimply, twenty-something guy working the cash register and orders him to empty it.
She should be more frightened than this, she knows. She can see terrified tears starting to roll down MJ's cheeks and wonders why she isn't reacting like a normal person would. But Gwen has faced worse than this. Gwen has felt the breath of an enormous ten foot tall lizard on her face, Gwen has had lasers from the deadliest robot in the world pointed at her from a tied up chair. Gwen has had plenty of moments to fear for her life, and even though there is a gun in the man's hands, she is reasonably certain that the chances of them being murdered here are very slim. The man is desperate and clearly wants to get the cash and get out, and Gwen is smart enough not to stand in his way.
"Faster," the man orders the guy working the cash register. Gwen isn't really even paying attention, almost feeling impatient for the man to hurry up with his money and leave, but the gunshot knocks her back to her senses.
Both she and MJ scream as the guy crumples to the floor, holding his wounded side. Gwen was wrong, disastrously wrong about the whole situation, and only then does she feel the real fear creeping up like bile in the back of her throat.
MJ looks like her knees might buckle. Gwen closes her eyes and thinks of Peter. She wonders where he is right now. She wonders if she can will him here, if she tries hard enough. Would somebody have even called the police about this? Would Peter be in his apartment right now and get that bizarre, hair-raising sense he described to her once, and come running to their aid?
She hates herself for thinking it, but standing here with her eyes shut in the middle of a hold-up, all Gwen wishes for is a boy in a spandex suit with a God complex to come bursting through the doors to save them.
She hears the sirens approaching and her heart lurches in her chest as the man looks up, panicked. She doesn't want him to hear the sirens, doesn't want the police to interfere. This guy looks crazy, like he isn't afraid to hurt anybody and he will do it fast, before the police can even get into the store.
When the door flies open Gwen braces herself for a commotion, but all she hears is the whirr of a biocable releasing and the sound of the man's gun crashing out of his hands. Gwen releases a breath that she doesn't know she was holding, muttering the words, "Thank god."
Within seconds Spiderman has slung enough webs to trap gunman to the wall. He turns to Gwen and for a second he thinks he might actually talk to her, but that's absurd, he wouldn't dare.
"The police are here."
Oh, Jesus. He is talking to her. Her whole face starts to burn.
"I have to go, but there are ambulances outside—can you get him some help?" he says, motioning to the groaning man on the floor by the cash register.
Gwen nods wordlessly. Peter's gaze lingers on her for a moment through the mask, and then he tears off into the street. She hears a few shots go off from the police, prays that they missed him, and then hears nothing more.
"Oh my god," Mary Jane splutters. "Spiderman—just saved us, and then he—he talked to you."
Gwen ignores her, exiting the store to flag down anyone who can help the guy who was shot. She finds the appropriate emergency personnel, makes sure the guy is going to be taken care of, then stares off into the direction of her apartment complex, where she hopes Peter is now.
Mary Jane walks over to her in a daze, staring up at the sky. "I think I'm in love," she says dreamily.
Gwen snorts.
"What?" asks Mary Jane. "You don't have a monopoly on Spiderman crushes."
Gwen scowls. "What are you talking about? I don't—I don't like Spiderman."
"Oh, please," says Mary Jane affectionately, "you're obsessed with him."
Gwen opens her mouth to protest, but then MJ swipes at some of the tears from just a few seconds before, drying her cheek with the sleeve of her sweater. She looks up at Gwen and laughs nervously. "Anyway. That was really freaky."
"Yeah," Gwen agrees, but her mind is already some place else, already at Peter's door and knocking to make sure he's alright.
MJ grabs Gwen's arm. "I just—do you mind if I stay at your place tonight?"
Gwen stiffens.
"I guess I could go home—"
"No, of course," says Gwen. "Don't be silly."
It means she can't talk to Peter tonight, but she can't begrudge Mary Jane this. All traces of her normal dramatics are gone. She is genuinely shaken—she hasn't endured anything like this before, so Gwen reminds herself to show some compassion.
They walk back to Gwen's apartment, where Gwen walks past Peter's door and tries very hard not to stare for any sign of him. She blows up an air mattress for MJ, finds some clean sheets to put on it, and turns out the light surprisingly little talk of the incident. MJ falls asleep almost immediately. Gwen listens as her friend's breathing evens out, as she starts to snore. She closes her own eyes, tries to think of long strings of equations or the periodic table or any of the number of things that usually can put her right to sleep, but nothing works.
It's scary, how fast she can revert to a high school version of herself. She hasn't worried like this about Peter in years, or at the very least, she has been able to shove her worry aside and live her life. It feels like she is trying to reclaim something that once belonged to her, taking on the burden of this worry she has so long ignored, letting herself feel this way about a boy she thought she had permanently cast from her mind.
She stays awake for a long time. She tries a lot of things, from the silly equations to trying to plan out her schedule to counting sheep, but eventually it's the thought of him tapping on her window with that goofy, carefree grin all those years ago that finally lulls her to sleep.
Thanks so much for the reviews, guys. I was kind of wary about doing this from Gwen's perspective and I'm glad it seems to be going over well. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know! It's weird, but it seemed a lot easier to write from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy than it is from a 20-year-old girl, which is basically what I am. It shouldn't be so much of a struggle. Cue my identity crisis.