"I've thought about this a million times, you know."

Gwen tilted her head towards his voice. As soon as she had him in view, Miles' eyes darted from her to the city, then back towards her, like he needed to take a little timeout in between gazes. She smiled, scratching at the concrete beneath (above?) her to relieve her own nerves.

"What do you mean?" she asked. Their shoulders parted as she leaned back for a better view of him, sending Miles into a silent agony. His lips parted in thought, then his eyes locked with her's. Gwen studied every color she saw in them as he spoke.

"This…this moment, you know?" he said slowly, cradling every word. "Just… a moment. With somebody like me."

Gwen's expression dropped a little. For some reason the colors on her knee had become more interesting than the ones in Miles' eyes. Suddenly she couldn't stand the sight of the watch on her wrist.

"I know it's been hard, Miles," she said. "It's been hard for me, too." She struggled to raise her gaze to his again. When she finally did, she found him waiting for her, a completely different pair of paintings there for her to admire as he spoke.

"I've wanted to say this for a long time, Gwen. Ever since I watched you jump into the collider, so…" he swallowed, then smiled at her. The kind of smile that made her feel like she might slip right off the Williamsburg Bank Building.

"I missed you. I missed you a lot." Gwen's shoulders came up to shield the grin on her face. She giggled softly, struggling not to let her nerves come out.

"I missed you more, Miles," she replied. Miles felt something in his chest erupt, and he couldn't hold back a grin. For a moment, they just sat there, smiling to themselves in the sunset.

Miles dared to push his luck just a little bit more. He'd already come this far, after all. He drew a deep breath as nonchalantly as he could.

"You know, uh…" he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. "This is actually where I drew most of those pictures you saw in my sketchbook."

"Oh," she replied. What seemed like the longest second of Miles' life passed before he saw it click on her face.

"Oh," she said a little louder, her voice a bit shakier. Her hand traveled to her hair, running her fingers down her blond locks through her pink highlights. Her nerves only lasted for a moment before she smiled slyly towards him.

"So, what, this is like your 'thinking about Gwen' spot?" she prodded. Miles chuckled softly, leaning back and pressing his hands against the concrete.

"Something like that," he said softly. His expression wore a bit of loneliness as he took a short breath, leaning forward back into his knees.

"Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed or stressed or just…alone…I come up here," he said. Gwen felt a pang of simultaneous sympathy and guilt as he went on.

"I mean, I became Spider-Man with other Spider-people looking out for me." His eyes reflected the surrealist view of the inverted city as he wandered around in his memories.

"But…for the past sixteen months, I've been doing it on my own." When he looked at her, sixteen months of strength seemed to waver in his eyes.

"I guess I thought that…just knowing you guys were out there was enough. But I realized real quick that it wasn't."

Gwen nodded. "Yeah," she practically whispered. "I know the feeling." Miles let her words rest in the air, searching for more of his own as she continued.

"Thinking about how I'd never get to see you again," she said shakily. "It was really, really scary." She rubbed her hands against her triceps, suddenly feeling the chill of the altitude and the Brooklyn breeze.

"I was scared, Miles. For sixteen months, I was so scared." There was a brief silence between them before Miles managed to find the words he needed her to hear.

"So was I. So…I'm really glad you're here right now," he said, turning towards her. She hurried to meet his gaze.

"This is all I've wanted since we last saw each other. Just…to not be alone for once, you know? Having you here, it's like…"

"It's like things are finally right…right?" she interjected with a warm, longing smile. The rest of the world was a million miles away as he returned her expression.

"Yeah. Finally."

There was more he wanted to say. Some things that he knew were definitely too hasty to let out in a moment as precious and as fragile as this. Some things that he still wasn't really sure about, even after having a year and a half to think them over in his wildest dreams.

Gwen leaned back into his shoulder, interrupting his thoughts. This time he could feel the ghost of her hair graze against his jaw. He fought the urge to shout out in excitement as her electricity surged through him, stronger than any venom strike he'd ever pulled off. A strange, ethereal warmth permeated the air as they savored the waning moments of what had been the most unforgettable sunset they'd ever seen.

Maybe his wildest dreams didn't have to come true, he thought. Here, in this moment, in their own little dimension, the world didn't exist. It was just the two of them.

Like in every other universe, Gwen Stacy and Spider-Man were falling in love.