A/N: Just to relieve any potential concerns you all may have, I just wanted to make you aware that I will be gone for a couple weeks following the posting of this chapter. As always, fear not, I will not abandon my story and will be back shortly. However, this chapter is twice as long as normal, so please enjoy in my absence!
Chapter 7
Miles POV
Ugh. Last night was the worst. Just… the worst.
When Miles woke up on Saturday morning, this was the first thing to go through his mind. And indeed, the previous night had been a very irksome time for him. He spent all day and well into the night looking for Spider-Woman so he could begin his new mission for Mr. Murdock. If it wasn't so exhilarating to jump between buildings and run up walls, he would've died of boredom hours before he found anything.
As it was, he had eventually gotten bored anyway after convincing himself that he had checked every square inch of the New York City skyline and had begun to text Gwen while searching, which made his job significantly more enjoyable, at least for a few moments.
Then, to his annoyance, he'd found Spider-Woman lounging on the side of the Chrysler Building mere minutes into his conversation with Gwen. Having to cut his conversation short had been bothersome, but he had a mission to do, and though Mr. Murdock hadn't emphasized any sort of rush, Miles still imagined that the Kingpin would appreciate promptness.
So he had gone over to the Chrysler Building himself and tried to make himself appear as relaxed as Spider-Woman seemed. Of course, as she was stuck to the side of the wall and Miles could only run on walls, not stick to them, he'd been forced to lay down on one of the eagle sculptures just above her, then offered a friendly greeting.
She didn't seem too inclined to return it. She had attacked him fiercely, actually throwing them both off the building at one point, apparently more willing to let them both die than to listen to what he had to say. Then she'd blamed him for attacking her, along with a few other things. He'd been forced to make a few apologies for things that he wasn't sure he agreed were entirely his fault, then tried to get them back on topic.
He'd made his offer for Spider-Woman to join him, but for some reason she refused and tried to attack him again! Apparently that girl just had a serious problem with wanting to hit everything.
As a result, he'd been forced to use one of his suit's special features, a "Constrictor'' as his uncle called it, which was basically just a hard-light net that could hold any enemy in place, capable of only the slightest movements, but any movement at all gave the net a reason to tighten itself around you. Unfortunately, as it formed a self-sustaining hard-light projection, the net only lasted an hour and took twice that long to reload in the gauntlets.
Still, that was a long time to be able to restrain even superhuman enemies, up to two at a time. Last night had been the first time that Miles had tested out the Constrictor in the field, and honestly, it had been kind of satisfying to tie Spider-Woman up at the top of the Chrysler Building after she had wasted his time that he otherwise could've spent talking to Gwen. Or, you know, Uncle Aaron. Or his mom.
Suddenly, the door to his room burst open and Miles' eyes were assaulted with a blast of light from the hallway, causing him to hurriedly put up a hand to block it out with a groan.
The only reason that Miles had not leapt into action at the sudden intrusion was that he knew it could only be his mom coming to check on him. Such was his faith in his well-honed skills of observation, that he refused to believe that anyone could have broken or snuck into their apartment without his notice, even while he was sleeping. Not even Uncle Aaron could've done it anymore.
He was proven correct when, though his eyes were still shielded, he heard his mom's voice as she entered his room. "Miles! ¿Todavía estás en la cama? Get up!"
If there is one thing in life that no self-preserving soul would ever do, it is to disobey their mother. Miles knew this, and so despite his desire to simply pull his pillow over his face and go back to bed, he immediately sat up in bed and began to rub the tiredness out of his eyes, responding, "Yes, Mami."
As Miles threw off his blankets and turned to place his feet on the ground, Rio crossed to the window and opened the blinds, allowing fresh sunlight to spill into the room, causing Miles to wince once more in pain, though he managed to refrain from making any sounds this time.
Once that was done, Rio turned back around to leave, but as she was going through the doorway, she turned back and said with a smirk, "Oh, and there's someone on the phone for you. And I think it's a girl."
At that, Miles' head perked up, suddenly feeling much more awake. There was only one person he would expect to be calling him: Gwen. They had already discussed possibly hanging out over the weekend, and this must be it, the opportunity that he had been looking forward to even though he would never admit it out loud.
Unfortunately, his mom noticed his reaction and decided to comment on it. Her eyes widening in realization, Rio asked, "Oh, you know her, don't you? Spill."
Looking down embarrassedly, Miles said, "It's just a girl in one of my classes. She's just a friend. It's nothing."
Seeming unconvinced, Rio folded her arms with a smirk and said, "Uh-huh. Sure it's nothing. What's her name?"
"Gwen. Gwen Stacy."
Frowning, Rio noted, "That's not a Spanish name."
"Well, it's Celtic, and both languages have some… Latin roots," Miles defended, then when his mom raised her eyebrows at him, he weakly added, "I may have… looked it up. On accident."
Rio pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation and shook her head, saying, "Right. Well, get the phone, mijo. You never make a woman wait on you. ¡Andale!"
As ordered, Miles quickly sprung up from his bed and moved out into the kitchen to pick up the phone from the tabletop and held it against his ear to ask, "Hello?"
Immediately, Gwen's familiar voice responded, "Miles? Oh, you have no idea how good it is to hear your voice."
"Same," Miles responded, though he was partially distracted by his mom standing in front of him and repeatedly pointing at the phone, then mouthing, Turn it on speaker! Miles put up a finger to temporarily deter his mother by telling her to wait, and continued, "I had a long night last night."
Gwen let out a chuckle on the other end, causing Miles to picture her smirk in his mind, and said, "Yeah, me too. Actually, I, uh… I couldn't finish my Physics homework last night, so I thought maybe you could help me with-"
"I didn't finish it either," Miles abruptly cut her off, now in the middle of a strange chase with his mother around their kitchen table as she tried to catch him and turn the phone onto speaker herself.
A short pause followed this statement, and then Gwen said despondently, "Oh, okay. Well, then… I guess I'll see you-"
"I wasn't saying that we can't hang out!" Miles cut her off once again, this time much more urgently. Hearing that, Miles' mom finally stopped chasing him and just stood in place across the table from him, watching with interest and listening carefully. "Maybe we can work on our homework together?" Miles suggested hesitantly, shrugging at his mom, but she just put her hands up questioningly, not exactly helping him as he'd hoped for.
Fortunately, it didn't seem to be necessary, as after a short silence, Gwen said, "Yeah. Yeah, totally. That sounds great. So we'll meet at-"
"You can come over to me and my mom's apartment," Miles suggested. "Here, let me just give you the address…"
After Miles had shared his home address with Gwen and made sure that she had it written down correctly, Gwen said, "Alright, Miles. I'll head right over. I should be there in under half an hour."
Smiling to himself subconsciously, Miles responded, "Sounds good. See you then."
"See you."
The moment Gwen hung up and Miles lowered the phone from his ear, he looked up and shockingly found his mom wiping a tear from one of her eyes. "Mom?" Miles asked worriedly. "Are you alright?"
Rio let out a small chuckle and said, "Estoy bien, Miles. Just… Your father would be so worried right now. And he'd act angry to hide it. He'd act all protective and authoritative, and his voice would be cracking when he starts trying to explain himself to me. But really, he'd be happy. It's just… I wish he could be here to see this."
"Me doing my homework?" Miles asked, confused.
At that, Rio let out a loud laugh, making Miles back up in slight concern for his mom's mental state, but then she calmed down enough to say, "No, Miles. Your first date."
Even more confused now, Miles shook his head and said, "Mom, it's not a date. We're just studying together. I don't think homework is even a thing that you can do for a date."
Shaking her head with an amused smile on her face, Rio said, "Ah, Miles. You have so much to learn. Now, your 'study buddy' is on her way over and you're still in your pajamas, so you may want to get changed."
Miles looked down at himself to see that he was indeed wearing only the clothes he had slept in, a black tank top and dark purple polyester shorts. Looking up at the clock with worry, Miles swiftly darted back into his bedroom and shut the door behind himself with a hurried, "Thanksmomloveyou!"
However, the door had barely closed before it burst open once again and Miles came running back into the room and down the hall to enter the bathroom. A moment later, Rio heard the shower begin running.
The shower only ran for a few minutes before it turned off and Miles came running out of the room and back into his bedroom, slipping across the floor with his feet still wet while he struggled to tie a towel around his waist while off-balance. Once he'd closed himself in his room once again, he swiftly began to sweep all of his more childish belongings out of sight, like his action figures and piggy bank, things he'd held onto all his life without really knowing why he couldn't let go of them, stuffing them into drawers or under the bed or wherever he could.
He then grabbed some clothes and threw them on his bed, but just as he began to picked up his new shirt to change, he suddenly saw himself in the mirror and thought, …Maybe I should do my morning exercises, try to get more fit. I mean… the Prowler should probably look a bit bigger, right?
His Uncle Aaron had assigned him a series of exercises that he was supposed to do every morning, but seeing as he usually got plenty of exercise doing his actual "Prowler thing", Miles hadn't really been following that advice too often. Today, though, it just felt like the right thing to do.
After pulling his shirt off completely and quietly moving over to his bedroom door to lock it, Miles stepped into the center of his room and began to do his exercises as fast as he could. He ran in place, did push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups (the last one done on the pull-up bar that Uncle Aaron had just recently installed in his room and disguised as a new shelf for Miles' books), and ended off by putting on his soundless shoes and repeatedly running up the wall and backflipping off of it to land on his feet, trying to remember all of the tips that his uncle had given him in order to execute it perfectly.
Then, once he was done, he moved over to the bed to grab his new clothes once again but abruptly froze in horror and realized, I'm all sweaty.
Scrambling madly, Miles wrapped his towel around his waist once again and dashed down the hall for the second time this morning and entered the bathroom before turning on the shower. This one was slightly longer, as he wanted to wash off the smell of sweat that had built up during his exercises, but he still hurried through it, knowing that Gwen would be arriving in about ten minutes. However, once he finally finished, he stepped out of the shower and began to take deep breaths. He still had plenty of time. There was no reason to worry.
He calmly wrapped himself up in the towel for the third time and stepped out of the bathroom, completely at ease. Then, as soon as she heard the door open, Rio called down the hall, "Oh, Miles! Your friend's here!"
Miles was immediately seized by panic, and with a rather unflattering yelp, he ran through the kitchen and slammed himself inside his room, hearing two female voices laughing in the kitchen. His face red, Miles quickly turned back to his bed and began to get dressed, putting on dark gray cargo shorts and a black shirt with a blue basketball jersey over it, then came back into the kitchen with a glare on his face.
He found his mom and Gwen sitting across the table from one another, still struggling to stifle their giggles, which only got worse when he entered the room again. Gwen was wearing her usual black leggings and blue ballet slippers, though she'd traded in her school uniform for a simple zipped-up white coat with a hood hanging on the back and drawstrings dangling in the front. Personally, Miles thought that the color suited her more than her usual, darker style. Not that he really cared either way.
Directing his glare primarily at Rio, Miles said, "Mom, you knew I was taking a shower. You couldn't have told me when she got here?"
Looking up at him innocently, Rio smiled and said, "But Miles, she got here just a minute ago and came in through the window. How was I supposed to know she'd show up like that?"
Raising an eyebrow at Gwen, Miles asked, "You came in through the window? And how'd you get here so fast?"
Gwen shrugged and answered, "Well, my dad had to drop me off early and go deal with a problem at the station, and you know how it is. It's much faster to walk than to drive in New York's morning traffic. Then, when I got here, I just wanted to surprise you, so I came in on the fire escape."
Miles groaned and said, "Well, you definitely surprised me."
"Gwen, your dad wouldn't happen to be Captain George Stacy, would he?" Rio asked with sudden interest. Gwen nodded, and Rio exclaimed, "¿En serio? Of course you are! My Jeff used to talk about your father all the time!"
"Jeff," Gwen said, trying out the name. "Was that Miles' dad's name?"
"Yes, he was," Rio said as her eyes flicked over to the mantelpiece in the back of the room, where a folded-up American flag in a glass case sat with a framed picture on either side.
To the right was a picture of Miles' dad standing at attention in his full police uniform, staring ahead determinedly, his eyes stern and vigilant behind his glasses. The picture on the left showed the other side of him, showing Jeff with his arm wrapped around his wife to pull her in close as they sat side-by-side on the couch, pressing the sides of their faces together to fit into the frame while their expressions were both frozen in happiness and laughter. Miles stood at the front of the image, his hair worn in a tangled afro on top of his head as this had been from over a year ago, one of his arms partially out of view as he held the camera and smiled brightly to complete the image.
Seeing this herself, Gwen looked back at Miles and asked, "Does your mouth still do that? The smiling?"
Rio looked at her son as well and tried to stifle a laugh, starting to like Gwen more and more.
However, Miles remained completely stone-faced and answered, "No. Now, can we get to work?"
Recognizing her cue, Rio stood up from her seat and said, "Yes, you two had better get working, and I need to get to work myself. Miles, I'll be back tonight, but I might have to work late again. If Gwen needs a ride home, call your uncle. And Gwen… Don't you take him from me while I'm gone."
"Mom!" Miles complained with embarrassment. Rio didn't respond, just winked at Miles on her way out the door.
Once his mother was gone, Miles chuckled nervously and told Gwen, "My mom is… She's a joker. Kinda crazy, you know."
Gwen just shrugged with a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth and said, "I think she's cool."
Miles sighed sadly and turned to go back into his room, muttering, "Of course you do. This time tomorrow, you'll know all of the embarrassing 'baby Miles' stories and my life will officially be over."
Gwen could no longer even hear him at this point, but it made Miles feel marginally better to speak his worries out loud. He grabbed his backpack and walked back into the kitchen before spreading his work across the surface of the table and taking a seat next to Gwen.
He picked up his pencil and looked at the worksheet, then asked, "Alright… Did you look at number-?"
"Miles," Gwen suddenly cut him off. "I don't think either of us actually need help, especially with the first weekend assignment of the year. This is really just an excuse for us to hang out, relax after the weird night that we both apparently had."
"Oh. Right," Miles acknowledged, feeling rather foolish for not realizing it earlier. To fill the silence, he asked, "So, what happened to your night?"
Gwen winced and hesitated to answer, then finally said, "Well, I decided to go out for a walk and worry about my homework today instead. I ended up staying out a bit longer than I planned, and I ran into this guy who started pushing me around a bit."
Miles' expression darkened at that, and he asked, "Ned? Or one of his friends?"
Gwen shook her head and answered, "No, this guy was smaller than any of them, but still tough. Actually, I think Ned's been avoiding me since the whole 'apology' thing. I haven't seen him. This guy, though… Probably even worse than Ned." She noticed Miles looking disturbed and quickly added, "It's fine, Miles. He didn't hurt me, just tried to scare me a bit."
"Did you see his face?" Miles asked, not to be deterred from what he now planned to do: replicating the effect of what he had done to scare off Ned. He didn't know why Gwen attracted so much negative attention. Maybe guys just noticed that she was a pretty young woman and couldn't help but to try to draw her eye. Of course, in the end, it didn't matter. The Prowler would scare off every predatory figure in the city if he had to.
"No, he was wearing a mask," Gwen answered, now with some caution in her eyes. "Didn't you hear what I said, Miles? This guy may be even worse than Ned. Like… a real criminal type. Don't do anything stupid and risk getting hurt over this."
"Alright, alright," Miles pretended to agree, but his mind was otherwise distracted. The fact that this guy had been wearing a mask wasn't going to stop Miles from finding him. No one got to hurt his friend, not Ned Leeds and not even the worst kind of criminal scum that New York had to offer. Maybe Mr. Murdock would be able to help him find and punish the man responsible.
Still, Miles was furious at himself for having been out there, wearing his full gear and all, when Gwen was harassed yet doing nothing to stop it because he was wasting his time with the Spider-Woman. Hoping to atone for that, he made a silent vow to himself that he would do a nightly patrol, during which he would make sure that Gwen was safe, not willing to let what happened to her last night eventually become something worse.
Scowling, Miles said, "I just hate that this city is the kind of place where stuff like that can happen. People need protecting, and there's just so few people that can or will help them when they need it most."
Gwen's face was expressionless as she looked down at the table and said, "I agree more than you know." Then, after a moment she seemed to break free from her thoughts and asked, "Anyway, what happened to you last night?"
His eyes suddenly going wide, Miles said, "Oh, right! That reminds me…" He pulled his phone out of his pocket and pulled up his texts. Last night, after his failure of getting Spider-Woman to join him, he had sent a text to his mission organizer.
Miles: Failed to acquire package. Denied repeatedly.
Now, he seemed to have gotten a response at some point during the night.
Avocado: Understood. We'll sort it out. Standby.
Leaning over Miles' shoulder to look at the contact he was texting, Gwen questioned, "Why are you texting an avocado?"
Refusing to acknowledge her joke, Miles simply answered, "It's my boss… Well, technically my uncle's boss, I'm just helping while my uncle's injured. Anyway, it's my boss, Mr. Nelson. He insisted on being saved in my contacts as 'Avocado'. I asked him why, but he wouldn't say."
Gwen nodded slowly, then asked, "So… Can I know what happened last night?"
Just now remembering her question, Miles quickly thought up a Gwen-friendly version of the story and explained, "Alright, so I was on this job for my boss. Well, my uncle's boss, but- You know what I mean!" Miles said irritably as he watched Gwen try not to laugh.
Pushing onwards, he continued, "So I was supposed to pick up this package for him, but I didn't really know exactly where it was. So I was just going around Manhattan all night trying to find it. Then, when I finally do find it, there's this girl that just completely refuses to let me have it. To tell you the truth, things actually got kinda heated between us…" Gwen raised an eyebrow at him, and Miles quickly added, "In, like, the violent way, of course! She tried to attack me a few times, but I wasn't about to hit a girl, my mom would kill me. So instead I just… got out of there."
At the end of the story, Gwen's face appeared neutral, but when she spoke, she seemed rather demented. "Can you please lead me to this girl? I want to talk to her about trying to attack my friend. And then I think I'd like to tear her hair out."
Miles chuckled and continued to work on his Physics assignment. He appreciated the way that Gwen was trying to be supportive of him, but he didn't want to say anything about her chances against Spider-Woman.
They continued working for another few minutes, both of them occasionally sharing distasteful comments about the people that had bothered the other during their night. It seemed to have been mutually beneficial for them to share the details of their night with one another, as they now both seemed too preoccupied feeling defensive of one another to worry about their own problems. It certainly made Miles feel more comfortable to be able to worry about "normal people problems" than to deal with his issues as the Prowler.
However, they were broken from their conversation as well as their homework when Gwen suddenly broke off in the middle of a sentence and turned to squint out the kitchen window. Miles, not knowing what had brought this about yet also knowing that it couldn't be nothing, asked, "Gwen? What's wro-"
He also broke off in the middle of his sentence as he felt something: a sudden rumbling in his bones, like the floor had shaken beneath him. The first time he felt it, it was very faint, and he might not have even believed it was real if it hadn't also created ripples in the water of his mom's glass flower vase sitting on the table right in front of him. But then there was another jolt, then another, then another, each time getting progressively stronger and soon accompanied by the sound of loud crashes and distant yelling and screaming.
Then, Gwen abruptly called out, "Miles, get down!" and leapt across the table to tackle him to the floor. Not a moment too soon, it seemed, as another mighty crash suddenly sounded right beneath them, shaking the whole building and causing the kitchen window to shatter in its frame and send broken glass flying into the room to scatter across the tabletop.
Shaken more from Gwen's surprise attack than from the building getting rocked on its foundations, Miles took a moment to recover his senses and climb back to his feet as the sounds of chaos from outside moved right past them.
Fortunately, Gwen had already gotten off him, dashing over to the broken window as soon as the dust had settled. Miles moved over next to her and stared out at whatever she was looking at, which seemed to be some giant gray… something that was bouldering its way through one apartment building after the next, leaving only massive holes in walls and large clouds of dust in its wake.
"It's the Rhino," Gwen said grimly.
Miles shook his head to help himself recover from the shock of whatever had just happened and asked, "Rhino? That supervillain that Spider-Woman took down? I thought he was in the Raft!"
The Raft was the name for the super maximum security prison island near Ryker's Island on the East River of Manhattan. It was widely considered to be the only place on earth capable of holding super-powered prisoners.
"He was!" Gwen agreed frustratedly, watching the destruction below with building horror.
Miles was in a similar state of shock, and finally set his expression with determination before placing a hand on Gwen's shoulder and turning her to face him, then said firmly, "Gwen, I need you to stay right here, all right? I'm going to go find my mom and make sure she's okay, but you need to stay here where it's safe, and I'll be back soon."
Gwen seemed alarmed by the prospect and said, "No! Miles, you can't go out there! I need to go find my dad and make sure he's not chasing after that thing, he'd only get himself killed. I'll check on your mom and call you to let you know that she's safe."
Gwen turned around and grabbed her backpack off a chair before she walked over to the apartment door, but suddenly Miles jumped in front of her with his arms spread out wide. "No, Gwen, wait. I'll check on your dad. While you're visiting my house, I can't let you get yourself hurt. So could you… just sit down, please?"
Smiling affectionately, Gwen stepped towards him and placed a hand on his cheek, then said, "Thanks, Miles… But I really don't have time to debate this."
And with that, the hand on his cheek swiftly fell down to his shoulder and grabbed it firmly, then, with a surprising amount of strength, she quickly shoved him aside and ran out the apartment door, yelling, "Sorry, Miles! I'll tell your mom you said 'Hi!'"
He helplessly watched her go for a minute, then realized that she'd made a wrong turn and called out, "Hey, that elevator only goes… to the roof."
But she had already disappeared from sight, so Miles just said to himself, "Unbelievable. You know what? She'll figure it out. I have something else I need to do." With that, he turned and walked into his room to change into his "work clothes".
Gwen POV
"Just one quiet weekend. Is that so much to ask?" Gwen muttered to herself as she took off her jacket and shoved it into her backpack while pulling out her mask and gloves instead. She then pulled the gloves over her hands and threw her backpack behind a rooftop vent opening and stuck it against the metal surface with a thick blast of webbing.
She'd learned that she could never be too liberal with the amount of webbing she used to hold down her backpacks after she'd lost almost half a dozen in the last year. Like, seriously, who steals a backpack?
Gwen crouched down and looked out over the city, watching and listening closely for the next area that was definitely being besieged by Rhino. It wasn't an easy task now that the streets were filled with countless people screaming or crying as well as sirens blaring from all manner of emergency service vehicles.
However, she eventually saw a large fireball erupt into the sky, followed by a long string of unintelligible Russian curses, and she sighed to herself, "There's our boy." She then pulled on her mask and pulled her hood over it, then shot out a web line to stick to a building across the street.
Before she left, however, a bright image on the wall to her right caught her eye, and she looked over to see an enormous graffiti drawing on the next building over showing Miles' dad, wearing his glasses, police uniform, and a wide smile, with his name, "Officer Jeff Morales", written on the left. On the right, words in the same style said, "Husband, Hero, Father", and beneath it all in larger letters was written, "Rest in Power".
Miles must've really loved his dad, Gwen thought to herself as she realized that he must've been the one to create this mural. As Miles had been hesitant to show her any of his current drawings, this piece, dedicated to his father, may have been the last public work of art that Miles had ever created. It reminded her of the picture of Miles with his family in his apartment. If he was this kindhearted now, she could only imagine what a blessing it would've been to know him back when he was that kid that felt like he had something to smile about. It was heartbreaking to think that someone as innocent and kind as Miles had to carry such pain with him.
Looking back at the rooftop entrance doorway, Gwen quietly said, "I really am sorry, Miles." Then, focusing back towards her destination with determination, Gwen jumped off the building and began to swing as fast as she could towards Rhino's location. She knew that she would have to give Miles a better apology at some point, but that would have to wait until innocent people weren't getting trampled.
Having fought Rhino in the past, Gwen knew that her first priority had to be stopping him. As long as Rhino was on the move, he would be doing untold levels of damage as almost no force could stop him when traveling at his enhanced running speeds.
But first, she would have to get him somewhere a bit less crowded. She swung on her webs around the buildings of New York, cutting corners when necessary in order to intercept Rhino on his path, not bothering to just follow the trail of destruction and hope to catch him. Then, as soon as she got him in her sights, she shot a web straight onto him and pulled herself onto his massive back, sticking her feet and trying to hold on like she was riding an extremely temperamental bull.
As Rhino wore a thick suit of reinforced metal armor and had all the strength that came with it, he didn't even feel her landing. Next was her favorite part of fighting any enemy, the part where she got to have fun while effectively drawing their attention onto her instead of the city or its inhabitants: the antagonizing, extra emphasis on the "agonizing" part.
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to pull over and show me your license. Either a CDL or a circus license, from the look of things."
Looking over his shoulder at her and just realizing that Spider-Woman was on his back, Rhino growled and said in a thick Russian accent, "It's you!"
"Well, look at you, Aleksei! I guess you took a 'Deductive Reasoning' class in the Raft, huh?"
Rhino's real name was Aleksei Sytsevich, a Russian gangster that had permanently locked himself inside a suit of experimental armor in order to compete with the Spider-Woman after she stopped one of his attempted heists. Like many of her enemies, he hated it when she called him by his real name. Like with all of her enemies, this only made her want to do it more.
With his face now turned towards her, Gwen shot a line of webbing to stick over the darkened eye lenses in his mask, causing him to shake and struggle against them, but if he attempted to pull them off, he would risk losing his momentum, so instead he just continued to run with his vision slightly impaired.
She then stood up tall on his back and held the lines of webbing in her hands like reins on a horse, then began trying to steer him to a less busy area. It wasn't an easy task. Rhino was moving fast, and if she didn't steer him down the right streets, he would end up crashing through more walls, potentially knocking her off of him but definitely costing the city a fortune in repair fees.
"Where am I gonna put you?" Gwen wondered to herself as she tried to figure out a plan while simultaneously focusing on steering Rhino out of the path of civilians. Still wanting to antagonize Aleksei further, she pondered out loud, "Did you ever hear about the 1874 Central Park Zoo Escape Hoax? They claimed that an escaped rhino got stuck in a sewer. You enjoy irony, Aleksei?"
Although he couldn't see her well, Aleksei turned his head up to look in her direction and said, "You wouldn't dare."
"I would," Gwen assured him, "But you have a point. I wouldn't give the cops the job of trying to pull you out of the sewer. Hmm… You know any big, empty spaces in this city, Aleksei?"
"I know of the perfect place," Rhino drawled, then slid into an abrupt turn that would've shaken Gwen off if she hadn't been sticking her feet to his back, then ran headlong towards the entrance of a wide building.
Unfortunately, the building was very recognizable to Gwen, even though she'd only ever personally visited it once. "Uh, Aleksei, maybe not this-!" Gwen tried to protest, but she was cut off as Rhino carelessly plowed through the wall, giving Gwen a facefull of brick, and dropped down to the floor inside Grand Central Station.
The brick wall that Gwen just ate combined with Rhino's sudden stop upon landing on the ground was enough to knock her off of his back and send her sliding along the polished floor, coming to a complete stop a couple dozen feet away from where Rhino now stood pulling her webs off of his eyes.
Looking around, Gwen could see crowds of people crammed inside the station, looking down between her and Rhino with surprise, clearly too shocked by their explosive arrival to even react to it yet. However, all that changed when Gwen groaned out, "Yeah, you should all probably get out of here."
Immediately, people began to rush towards any exits they could find pushing and shoving and generally making a ruckus, panicked screams and yells of "I hate this city!" somehow rising above the din.
Fortunately, Rhino made no move to stop anyone from leaving, meaning that Gwen must've successfully drawn all of his attention onto her. That was the good news. The bad news was… Well, that she had all of his attention on her.
"Oh, no. Did I already squash you, spider?" Rhino said mockingly as he watched Gwen struggle to get back to her feet.
Dazed, Gwen nevertheless managed to say, "Who, me? No, this is… all part of my plan. Seriously, though, Aleksei, didn't you hear me say a big, empty space?"
Spreading his arms to gesture to the quickly clearing station, Rhino defended, "Well, it will be empty in a moment. But perhaps you want to get to the fun sooner than that, da?" Then, before Gwen could stop him, he quickly picked up a nearby heavy wooden bench and threw it towards the destroyed doorway, where a large crowd of panicked civilians were gathered.
Her eyes going wide, Gwen immediately shot web line after web line above the crowd, interweaving them together to make a safety net that caught the bench just inches above their heads, though they only seemed to panic even more as they realized that they were now being directly attacked.
Gwen then turned back to Rhino and angrily called out, "Hey! This is between you and me!"
"Sorry, I missed," Rhino said sarcastically, then slammed one of his fists into the ground and aimed the razor-sharp horn on his head towards her as he prepared to charge. "Here, this will help me to aim better." Then, with a bellowing roar, he charged towards Gwen with speed like a freight train.
Instead of running, however, Gwen just got into a crouched position and prepared to jump over him. She waited until the last minute, letting him get as close as she could risk, then swiftly jumped up right over his horn, stepping off the back of his head, and jumped higher into the air, trying to find a wall that she could stick to.
However, Rhino didn't give her that chance as she suddenly felt one of his massive hands reach up and grab her leg. Gwen just had time to curse, "Ah, rhino doo-doo," before she felt herself violently yanked backwards and slammed onto the floor on her back, where Rhino began trying to smash her with his fists. She expertly rolled back and forth on the ground, dodging one blow after another, then took a second's pause to fire webbing onto Rhino's eyes, blinding him.
With his vision impaired, Gwen shot a web line at one of the building's support pillars and tried to pull herself away from him, but she was once again stopped as Rhino blindly groped at the floor and grabbed her around the waist, then threw her across the room to crash into the opposite wall.
She coughed in the dust that had been kicked up by the rubble, then weakly said, "You know… I read somewhere rhinos are usually pretty harmless. I'm starting to think you're not a real rhino."
Rhino laughed and stomped slowly towards her, saying, "You make joke, little spider? You find humor in your death?"
"You don't?" Gwen asked disbelievingly, trying to stall while she tried to think out a plan. "You think I'm a bad opponent, but once you kill me, your next enemy is going to be PETA."
Rhino grinned and smashed his hand into the floor once again, aiming his horn dead ahead, and said, "I will take my chances. Say goodnight, spider."
Rhino barrelled towards Gwen, who managed to pull herself partially out of the wall and braced herself to jump away from his charge once again to avoid getting impaled, but Rhino didn't manage to reach her. Instead, he only got within a few yards of her before a blur of black with magenta light suddenly shot towards him from the side. Then with a flash of silver, something hit Rhino in the face so hard that he was knocked off his path, spittle flying from his mouth as his jaw nearly snapped out of place.
After it hit him, the blur came to a stop right in front of Gwen, and she looked up in amazement to see the Prowler (the younger one) standing next to her with a clawed hand outstretched towards her. He didn't say a word, but it was clear that he was offering her help in getting back on her feet.
Of course, Gwen was hesitant to accept any gesture of assistance from a supervillain, but given that he had just shaken the unstoppable Rhino with a single punch, she decided that she could make an exception. Whatever Prowler may be playing at, Rhino was the biggest problem right now, and if the lesser of two evils offered her help in trying to save lives, she'd be a fool not to take it.
She took Prowler's hand and allowed him to pull her out of the wall and down to her feet, and then they both began to approach the Rhino, who massaged his jaw with one massive hand before grinning back at both of them. "So, the spider has a friend now, eh?" he questioned with delight. He stood up tall, his larger-than-life scale allowing him to easily tower high above the teenage vigilantes. "Good. More to crush!"
"Does he always talk like this?" Prowler asked, seeming merely curious and not at all afraid.
"You have no idea," Gwen answered wearily.
Rhino roared and charged towards them, causing Gwen and Prowler to scatter to either side of the enormous supervillain, and Gwen heard Prowler call out, "Hold his arms!"
Not wasting a moment to question the order, Gwen immediately fired a line of webbing onto either of Rhino's hands, then tethered the line onto a pair of support pillars behind him. It wouldn't hold him long, nor would it stop his charge, but that didn't seem to be Prowler's intention. He simply ran full speed directly towards Rhino like he was going to meet his charge, but then at the last second fell down and slid beneath Rhino's feet on the waxed floor. Once he was behind Rhino, he then jumped back to his feet, and with Rhino's arms restrained to keep him from turning around, Prowler charged up one of his gauntlets and punched him hard in the back, right between the shoulder blades.
The force of Prowler's punch combined with the momentum of Rhino's running not only destroyed the webbing holding Rhino's hands, but also sent the villain flying all the way across the room with a yell. As Rhino crashed into the wall, both Gwen and Prowler immediately began to close in on him before he had a chance to recover. However, as Rhino began to climb back to his feet, he punched the wall behind himself, damaging it greatly, and grabbed a large boulder from the rubble before throwing it at Prowler, apparently more wary of him now than he was of Gwen, which was kind of irritating.
Deciding to voice this injustice, Gwen jumped into the air and webbed up the thrown boulder before swinging around in midair and throwing it right back at Rhino while saying, "Hey, ladies and old enemies first, Aleksei, and I'm both!"
The boulder hit Rhino directly in the head but merely shattered to pieces against his horn and only slightly dazed him. When he recovered, Rhino growled in frustration and picked up two more boulders before throwing one each at both Gwen and Prowler.
Still in the air, Gwen stuck to the side of the boulder just before it hit her and did a handspring to bounce off of it and towards Rhino, trying to maintain her speed.
However, Prowler moved even faster as he simply shot forward with a burst of light from his feet and hit the boulder with one of his fists before it could hit him instead, causing it to burst into many tiny pieces before he flew through the debris towards Rhino's head.
When he got close, Rhino tried to grab him, but Prowler grabbed onto the enormous man's horn and swung around it to land on his back, then raised his other hand and snapped out his claws before stabbing them into Rhino's neck, penetrating through Aleksei's armor and causing him to let out a yell of shock and pain, which only became prolonged as both of Prowler's gauntlets suddenly hummed before a jolt of electricity flowed from the gauntlets to cover Rhino's body.
Quickly determining that Prowler was the source of his newfound agony, Rhino reached up and grabbed Prowler by the collar of his jacket before roughly throwing him across the length of the open room. Before Prowler could crash into the wall (as Gwen knew from experience that it felt extremely painful), she pulled herself over to intercept him in midair, shooting a web line onto his front and sticking to the ceiling before pulling the line tight to stop his momentum.
Then, when he came to a complete stop and fell downwards to dangle by the front of his shirt beneath her, he glared up at her and said, "I had that under control."
"A simple 'thank you' would work too, you know," Gwen responded irritably. "What did you just hit him with, anyway?"
"Inbuilt taser in my gauntlets," Prowler answered, holding up the gauntlet that had done it as though trying to help her see the feature built into it. "But it only stunned him, and I won't be able to do it again for a while. So let go of the ceiling and get ready to hit hard."
Gwen had questions about what exactly Prowler's plan was, but decided to trust him on this one and just unstuck her free hand and feet from the ceiling, allowing both herself and Prowler to fall towards the floor. However, rather than them getting back to solid ground, Prowler tilted himself in midair so that he was lying horizontal with his head facing Rhino, then a blast from his feet launched him at incredible speeds towards the colossal villain, pulling Gwen along for the ride as she continued to hold on to the web attached to him.
Before they reached Rhino, Prowler grabbed the web line with one of his hands and yanked on it hard so that Gwen was thrown in front of him, just in time for her to pull back a fist and launch it forward into Aleksei's face. Her punch stunned him as his head was knocked backwards, and then as Gwen flipped over Rhino's shoulder and landed in a crouch behind him, Prowler followed right behind her, landing another powerful punch to the same spot that Gwen had hit, making Rhino stumble where he stood as Prowler dived over his other shoulder and landed steadily on his feet next to Gwen.
With a silent nod from Prowler that instantly let Gwen in on the plan, they let Rhino turn around to face them only to receive a double uppercut to the chin that sent him flying across the room. Then, as he landed on the ground and lay there groaning and aching all over, both Gwen and Prowler seemed to realize that he wasn't getting back up and wordlessly gave each other a small fist bump.
Unfortunately, they weren't given long to revel in their victory, as mere moments after Rhino had fallen, numerous men wearing full sets of kevlar body armor and carrying automatic rifles with flashlight attachments began to enter the building through the destroyed doorway, yelling out orders like, "Move, move, move!", "Surround the Rhino!", and "Watch out for Spider-Woman!"
One bright light fell on Prowler and Gwen before a voice called out, "Over here! Two targets sighted!"
Gwen was about to make her usual desperate escape attempt when suddenly Prowler grabbed her and said, "Come here…" before he abruptly lifted her off her feet and threw her over his shoulder. The only reason that Gwen didn't do anything to stop him was that she was shocked by this suddenly turn of events, but within a second, she'd recovered enough to blush furiously beneath her mask at the indignity of this image and tried to push him away while saying, "What do you think you're-"
However, she broke off as Prowler's shoes hummed for a second before he suddenly took off at a run, still carrying Gwen. As this was happening, Gwen's first thought was how very different it was to watch Prowler's movement from this perspective. She'd been shoved, thrown, pulled, hit, and blasted by Prowler's power-enhancing technology in the past, but she'd never quite experienced it like this.
Light seemed to bend around them as they moved, yet everything was thrown into sharp focus as they moved so fast that it was almost like the rest of the world stood still. Was this what it was like to move as he did? It was actually rather peaceful to see the world like this, almost beautiful.
Yet sadly, it lasted only moments, as Prowler ran across the room, jumped up onto a wall, bounced off of it and onto a second floor platform, then ran them down the hall and set her down once they were inside a janitorial closet, all within a matter of seconds.
He turned to close the door behind them, then turned to the wall and absently ordered, "Barricade that door. I need a few minutes to make a way for us to get out of here."
Confused, Gwen asked, "What are you talking about? I can swing us out through one of the windows. Or you can run us out the front door. Or, do you have any idea how many transit points there are in Grand Central Station?"
Turning to glare at her while he pulled two small disks from the front of his belt, Prowler argued, "Not during a police lockdown, there aren't. We're in the middle of Manhattan, if you haven't noticed. The police are only late to the party because they've been setting up a barricade around this place. So we can either sneak out or go fight the cops, and I don't know about you, but I'd prefer not to hurt any of them if I can avoid it."
Slightly embarrassed, Gwen looked down and agreed, "Right, right, sorry."
Gesturing with his head, Prowler repeated, "Barricade the door." He then turned back to the wall and placed the two disks on it right next to each other, then tapped them on the base, causing them to begin to hum. Prowler then began to pull the disks in opposite directions in a circular motion, leaving trails of scorch marks behind each device, revealing that they were burning through the wall. Meanwhile, Gwen turned around to face the door and began to shoot webs along the edges, tightly sealing them inside.
And it was fortunate that she'd done so, because not two minutes later, the doorknob turned and weight was thrown against the door, though it refused to open. The doorknob twisted a few more times as whoever was outside continued trying to open the door in vain, and then an authoritative voice yelled, "Spider-Woman and unknown vigilante! We know you're in there! Come out with your hands up!"
At the sound of the voice, Gwen winced. Just her luck, the speaker was easily recognizable as her dad.
Turning to face the doorway and reeling back like he was insulted, Prowler questioned, "'Unknown vigilante'? I was on the news just the other day!"
"Can you focus, please?" Gwen begged, unwilling to let her dad catch her not only being Spider-Woman, but also locked in a broom closet with the Prowler of all things.
Prowler nodded and returned his gaze to his work, saying, "Just buy me one more minute."
"This is NYPD!" Gwen's dad's voice called through the door. "I'm ordering you to open up RIGHT NOW!"
"Alright, but you asked for it!" Gwen responded, quickly thinking up a way to stall so Prowler could make their escape route. She took a deep breath and said, "I think some of my issues started with losing several people who were close to me at a young age. And there was this one time where I thought I was going to die of radiation poisoning, but I ended up getting superpowers instead. Then my powers started making me feel separate from everyone else around me, making it pretty hard for me to make friends. So anyway, it's all been a really tough time, you know?"
There was a silence from the other side of the door, during which Gwen amused herself by imagining her dad's befuddled expression, before his voice suddenly protested, "No, that's not what I-... OPEN THIS DOOR!"
"Ay, por dios. This guy's such a tool," Prowler muttered as he worked.
Suddenly defensive, Gwen protested, "Hey, show a little respect. He may be a little… high-strung, but he's still a good cop and a respectable captain."
Looking up at that, Prowler glanced around at her in shock and asked, "Wait, that's Captain George Stacy?"
"Are you nearly done over there?" Gwen asked impatiently, ignoring his question.
Prowler turned back to the hole he was making in the wall and spent a few more seconds cutting before he'd finally created a complete circle large enough for them to slip through. He then turned off his laser cutting disks and clipped them back onto his belt before kicking the circle out of the wall and revealing an empty drop into the city on the other side. He swept a hand graciously towards the wall and offered, "Ladies and old enemies first?"
Gwen put a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow at him with amusement, recognizing the reference to the joke she'd made earlier, but the moment was ruined almost immediately as Gwen's dad seemed to hear them and yelled out, "No! You are not getting away again! Everyone, stand back! Aim at the door!"
Gwen's Spider-Sense tingled, and she placed a hand in front of Prowler as she warned, "Look out!" However, Prowler ignored her warning and shoved her hand aside before running up to the doorway and kicking at the closed door. When his foot made contact with the door, there was a burst of light from his feet, and the door was suddenly ripped straight off of its hinges, even despite the webbing that Gwen had used to hold it in place, and Gwen heard it crash into several people as it flew across the corridor.
"Sorry, Captain Stacy!" Prowler called as he turned back to the hole in the wall and grabbed Gwen's wrist as he leapt outside. They heard the sound of gunshots behind them shortly after they jumped out of the building, and Gwen could sense bullets flying past their heads, but then Prowler stretched one hand upwards, snapping his fingers outwards, and fired a cable from the underside of his gauntlet which stuck to the side of a building and allowed them to swing out of the area.
He only swung them around the block before retracting the cable and allowing them to drop onto a rooftop, but at least they were out of the sight of the police. When they landed, they were both breathing hard as the excitement of the day caught up to them while the adrenaline wore off, but finally Gwen groaned to herself and said, "Jameson's gonna have a field day with this one. I can see the headline now. 'Spider-Woman and Known Criminal Destroy the City'."
Prowler just chuckled and said, "Hey, at least I'm 'known' this time."
"If that's your idea of a joke, maybe you should just leave the humor to me," Gwen rebuked him with a glare. "This city already didn't like me. Now they're going to say that I'm working with the Prowler!"
Gwen continued to glare at him for a few moments while he stared back at her silently, and then she let out a deep sigh of resignation and said, "Which means that my reputation can't really sink lower than this. Alright, Prowler. I'll do one job with you, but if I find out that whatever we do is… bad guy stuff, I'm taking you down."
"Sounds like a deal," Prowler responded, then reached into one of the many pockets on his pants and pulled something out before tossing it to her.
It wasn't until after Gwen had caught it that she realized it was a flip phone. Staring at the device in her hand, Gwen asked, "Is this how I'm supposed to contact you? Do I need to carry this around everywhere? I mean, it's not exactly in style…" She looked back up to look Prowler in the face once again, but stopped talking as she realized that he was no longer on the rooftop with her.
Shrugging weakly and turning around to try to figure out where he went, Gwen muttered to herself, "How does everyone keep managing to disappear on me like that?" And what am I getting myself into? she finished in her mind.
