Well look at this- I might be onto an actual decent update schedule. Not.

I just had a really shitty day, and I hoped that knowing some people would be looking forward to the net chapter (and actually getting it!) would make me feel a bit better.

Clint and Natasha watched as the last few crumbling, charred walls split and turned into black dust and ash. Fire-fighters clambered over the ground floor, looking for survivors, and shaking their heads when they left.

But what did that mean, shaking their heads? That there were no bodies? That there were bodies? That there were some things that could possibly have resembled a body once upon a time, one hour ago when the fire had started…

Clint fingered one his arrows aimlessly as he focussed everything on the burnt corpse of the building. Was Spider-Man in there? Did Spider-Man get out? Was that stupid kid in the suit dead?

He knew exactly what answers he didn't want to hear, and those were the ones he would probably be given.

And where were Parker and Stacy? They had been near the building. And Parker attracted trouble and injuries like flies zeroed in on the dumpsters Clint so frequently occupied…

"Do we know where Stacy and Parker are?" he signed to Natasha, dropping his arrow.

She made a movement, like she was sighing. "Stacy's out the front. There," she signed, and then pointed far below, where a blonde girl in a long coat was pacing back and forth amongst those who had gotten out of the building. "Parker… well, Parker ran into the building to help people."

Clint felt his jaw drop open, his chin falling somewhere down around his knees, or maybe even his ankles. "He ran in? He knows what was happening, he knows exactly who we're dealing with, and he just-" Clint threw up his hands disgustedly. He turned away from Natasha, focussing on the crowd, trying to pick out Parker from it. Stupid kid. Clint almost hoped he had a few burns as souvenirs of his stupidity and recklessness. Barely healed from Tony and Steve's ultra-bad-mean attack on Spider-Man, and- oh god, Spider-Man as well? Idiots, both of them, stupid little skinny scrawny idiots.

"I can't see him," he said aloud, squinting at them. "God, I hope he's gone back to his aunt's already, or-" he looked back up at Natasha, to find her staring at him. "What?"

"Clint, he went in the building. He's not down there, and Spider-Man's not down there, because he didn't get out."

A shiver went up his spine, and Clint couldn't stop himself from flinching. "Who didn't get out?" he asked, so quietly he couldn't even hear himself. "Parker or Spider-Man."

Natasha looked resigned. "Both, Clint. Parker is Spider-Man. Or was." She looked away from him.

"How do you know?"

She sighed. "We had a tracker on his cell. Not to abuse his privacy, just if there was something dangerous going on, we'd know where he was. It's-" she pulled out one of Stark's awful impossible-to-navigate devices- "not functioning." The screen had faintly glowing red letters spelled across. Error. Disconnected.

"It'd only be able to be overrun like that if it were burned in a fire, or through a powerful electric shock, maybe," Natasha explained, looking back down at the scene. "And I think we know which."

"Oh god," Clint breathed. "What- What are we gonna tell Stacy? And Parker's aunt?"

Natasha glared stonily at the ruined building. "Tell her to go home, and await any advancements. We don't 100% know that he's dead."

Clint breathed heavily through his nose. "She's not gonna like that.

Gwen did not like it. Clint ended up taking her home, and she demanded information and complained the entire way there. "I was there, as well as Peter! And you're allowing him to stay and help clean-up, even though he's still injured from Rogers and Stark's little tiff?"

"Parker works for Stark. Stark'll understand if he doesn't turn up tomorrow. Definitely, he's there. You're an Oscorp-er."

"Heard of sick days?" Gwen rebutted icily.

He felt guilty lying to her. Especially when it was about Peter. But- no. There wasn't a good excuse. It was a lie, and she would know it was a lie when they came to her with what happened, and she would never forgive them for that.

He still didn't say anything, and dropped her off home.

"Stark!"

Tony barely heard the sound of Steve's voice, and continued pulling up the rubble , searching underneath for signs of Peter or Spider-Man or both or just either of them, please, not both of them dead at once, he didn't think he could take-

"Tony!" Steve gripped him by the bicep.

"What," he snarled. "Don't make me stop! Parker or Spider-kid are still in here, we gotta get him out of else they'll-" he faltered, seeing something in Steve's other hand.

"It's too late," Steve said softly, and held up the charcoaled, bloodied fabric from Spider-Man's suit.

Tony blinked a few time, and turned back to what he was doing. "We can find Peter, at least. No one's seen a body, right? No body, no death, as far as I'm concerned. And anyway, that fabric means-"

"Tony," Steve continued. "Nat just-" he inhaled sharply and looked away, biting at the inside of his cheek.

"Ginger snap said what?" Tony growled. "What, Steve?"

Steve exhaled that tight breath and stiffened. "Peter was Spider-Man. Nat had a tracker on him, and that went offline pretty soon after he got on the scene."

Tony's vision started going red. "Oh, what, so you just fucking knew Peter was Spider-Man? And just decided not to tell me? Jesus, Steve, he was a fucking kid, why in the fuck wouldn't you tell me something like that?! And allow him on the streets? In a costume? And-" Tony trailed off. "He's not dead, he isn't-"

Steve was determinedly staring at something else in an effort not to cry. "The- the evidence all points towards it," he said unsteadily. "I don't- I don't think that there's anything we can do."

Clint Barton knocked quietly on Gwen's front door, which was immediately opened by a woman who looked very much like the younger Stacy. Damn. He had been praying (he wasn't even religious) that nobody was home, so his message would not have to be delivered.

"Hello! How may I help you?" she beamed, wiping flour from her hands onto a bloody apron. "Sorry, I'm just making dinner."

"Officer Barton, ma'am. Is this the residence of Miss Gwen Stacy? May I talk to her if so?" He wasn't expecting someone other than Gwen to open the door, but the lie slipped easily off his tongue.

Mrs. Stacy's grin faded as she dabbed the last bits of flour off her hands. "She's not in any trouble, is she? She's a good girl!"

"Your daughter is not in any trouble with the law," Clint reassured. "But this information concerns her."

Gwen's mother gave him a curious look, and then turned to call her daughter. "Gwen, sweetheart! There's a police officer at the door who needs to talk to you!" She took a step back. "Please, come in. I'm glad to hear she's not in any trouble!" Mrs. Stacy returned to the kitchen, leaving Clint alone in the room. It was nice room, actually. Lots of family photos in frames, hanging on the walls and sitting upright on cabinets.

Maybe you won't be glad of the news when she tells you, Clint thought.

Gwen came to the entrance room very quickly, pushing her brother in the face to make him exit the room. She quickly shut the door, and folded her arms to stare petulantly at him. "Clint! Have you sent Peter home?"

Clint decided to just get to the point. "Gwen, we know Peter was Spider-Man."

"Oh." She paled a little, but quickly returned to her normal complexion. "I guess you guys were always going to find out. Yeah, he is, and-" Gwen suddenly stopped dead.

She looked up at him, a line growing between her eyebrows, trying to sift through the subtext.

Was Spider-Man.

Was.

Clint felt a shiver run up his spine as he witnessed her realizing what he had said.

"Was?"

He stayed silent.

"You said 'was.'" She was paling, all the blood draining from her face. Her lips too, everything going stark white and cold.

Clint didn't say anything.

"You'd better hope for you and the Avengers' sakes that that was just an slip of the tongue," Gwen hissed. Her hands were trembling.

Clint shook his head slowly. "It's- It wasn't. I'm sorry."

God, words were so useless.

She stiffened, and Clint thought she was going to yell at him. But the voice that came out wasn't loud. "Please…" she said softly, pleading. "Tell me that he's not…" Her eyes were wide and her voice cracked.

"I am so sorry."

She didn't start crying. Clint could see the tears welling up, her face contorting, but she refused to let them fall. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides and she stood frozen, until she shook herself back into reality.

"You lied to me." Her voice was like a spike of ice. "You sent me home, pretending everything was fine and good and just fucking dandy."

"I'm sorry," Clint tried to say again, but she held up a hand with such authority, like Natasha or Fury, that he was silenced.

"Could you please leave?" Gwen's voice was steady, and slightly lower than it normally was.

"Yes. I understand. I'm sorry."

He left without saying goodbye. The he turned off his hearing aid.

He heard the crash anyway.

Clint was gone for maybe ten seconds when Gwen finally let the tornado of her emotions blow free.

She swiped at a vase, sending it toppling to the floor and splintering into a thousand pieces, and screamed as loudly as she could.

It took less than a second for her mother and Howard to run in.

"Gwenny, what's the matter!" her mother said, immediately collapsing to the ground next to her and trying to put an arm around her shoulder. It didn't sound like a question.

"FUCK!" she screamed. "FUCK!"

The expletives cracked into broken sobbing and she really couldn't, she really couldn't tell anyone, she's not emotionally and physically capable of doing so, now that her whole family was there, Howard and Phillip and Simon, all crowding around her and whispering, "Gwen, what's wrong?" "You can tell us, Gwen." She tried to calm down her crying, but then she just started hyperventilating, on her hands and knees, snot and tears and saliva dripping from her face.

Peter. Peter, who was going to move to England with her. And, unsaid, were going to live the rest of their lives together. Not officially, not yet, they knew they were too young, and goodness knows all those variables that could change anything, but in the years to come…

It took her hours to stop crying. She could barely remember anything, but she found herself wrapped in a blanket on the couch, hot tea in her hands; burning her fingers but she didn't care. Her mother made her lean on her shoulder, one hand stroking Gwen's head. Gwen's brothers quietly sat there with them.

They still didn't know what happened.

Gwen was now in a state far from calm, but better than before, when Clint first delivered the news.

She thought she was okay, but then the realization hit her, again, like a punch in the chest.

She broke down, again.