Gwen was two weeks into her summer of full-time work at Stark Industries. She'd been relegated to working with a new hire geneticist, a biochemist and a pharmacist. All of them had doctorates. So, she was treated like she was an intern, even though they were using her lab. Her name was literally on the door. In truth she had no interest in developing the super soldier serum. She let the scientists do their thing. She was never really interested in anything that wasn't made of metal and circuits. None of them knew she was the subject of their research. She performed all their tests on herself and pretended she was just running the tests with the anonymous subject.

She was bored. The scientists had their coffee so they had no further need for Gwen. So, she picked up her phone and slipped her ear buds in. She accessed her lair's computer system with her 6144-bit encryption. She'd developed it so only someone like Tony Stark might have a chance to break it. It required an app to use, and it was end to end. Communication was faster than she expected when she first built it. She put her earbuds in and checked the latest feed from the spider bot that was tracking Obadiah. She had her computer searching for any mention of Tony or her. She found a recording made a few minutes before. It was just Obadiah dressing down some scientist. What surprised her was Obadiah yelling at the end.

"Tony Stark built this in a cave! With a box of scraps."

The scientist sounded intimidated, but his answer was really the only answer he could give.

"Well, I'm not Tony Stark."

Obadiah paused for a few moments.

"That's right, you're not… its good I know someone who is just as smart."

The recording ended. She disconnected the encrypted connection and pulled her ear buds out. The lab door opened, and Obadiah walked in. After the recording she assumed she would be his next stop. He held his arms out wide.

"How is my favorite Lead Researcher?"

Gwen glanced at the scientists who started trying to look very busy when Obadiah showed up.

"Getting tired of doing coffee runs…"

He nodded and rubbed his hands together.

"Well, I have a new project for you. I've got a lab set up. This is going to be a dark project. You'll work on it alone."

Gwen stood up, grabbed her laptop, pushed it into her bag. She slipped her phone into her pocket. Doctor Simons swiftly walked up to the pair.

"What is the meaning of this? We need her."

Obadiah pointed at her and put his arm around Gwen's shoulders.

"Doctor Simons, she makes three times what you make an hour, and you have her getting you coffee. She is not an assistant. She is a lead researcher. She is something you will never be, she's a prodigy. You've squandered her as a resource. I need a return on my investment."

He squeezed Gwen's shoulders. He hadn't noticed she seemed less inclined to his physical contact lately. Gwen had tried to hide her anger at him.

"Come on Gwen."

He led her to her new lab which was in a building at the edge of the campus. The building itself was empty. He swept his access pass over the reader and the door opened. The lab was already equipped with the latest fabrication technology. He motioned for her to come with him after she dropped her things off. The pair got in a golf cart, and he drove her to the Arc reactor building. He motioned to it.

"Gwen. I need you to put that into a device this size."

He showed her a rough size with his hands.

"I'll make sure you're provided with the exact specifications."

Gwen looked up at him.

"I have no idea how the Arc reactor works."

Obadiah put his arm around her upper back and patted her shoulder.

"I have confidence in you. I need a working prototype ASAP."

He drove her back to the new lab. The last of the workers was ripping plastic off of the fabrication equipment. She blinked after Obadiah as he left the lab, he gave her a thumbs up. She sighed. She stared at the wall for about fifteen minutes then decided to head to the Trove. She still had access. Maybe Howard Stark left the plans for the Arc Reactor there. Gwen started in the oldest section. There were boxes of schematics and blueprints. She knew the Arc reactor was supposed to be supersecret but maybe there was a first draft.

Gwen was sitting cross-legged in the midst of several dusty file boxes. With stacks of yellowed schematics surrounding her when she heard the door open. It was Obadiah. She clocked that he seemed rather annoyed.

"Gwen, I thought you were going to be working on that new project."

She raised an eyebrow.

"I am, Obadiah. I have no idea where to start. You said you needed it fast. So, either I shut the Arc Reactor down and tear it apart to find out what makes it tick, or I find the original schematic. None of these are catalogued. I figured a couple of days of searching would be worth it if I found something of use."

He rubbed his head. He seemed… nervous. He was off lately. Like he was on edge. That wasn't Obadiah at all. He usually had a plan.

"Good thinking. Good thinking."

He wandered off. Gwen shook her head and kept digging through the plans. She found designs for everything under the sun. Even hydrogen bombs and different types of triggers for them. She put the nineteen-fifties away and moved on to the nineteen-sixties. Gwen came up empty in the nineteen sixties as well. She looked at the nineteen-forties and shrugged. Howard Stark was a genius in his own right, maybe he was way ahead of his time. She pulled them out and started digging through them.

Gwen was rewarded for her patience when she pulled out a diagram of a strange fourth dimensional object. In three dimensions it would appear like a cube. The cube was labeled the tesseract. Attached to that research was the design for a core. It was a wafer of Palladium. Just massive. Further down there were diagrams of what appeared to be batteries. The notes on the schematics were in German. She couldn't understand it. Folded in a diagram for a tank powered by the batteries she found another one of Howard Starks designs. Her eyes lit up. It was the design for the Arc reactor.

She was so excited about learning the secrets of the Arc Reactor she didn't stop to think if she should build one for Obadiah. It was a theme that would repeat itself in her life many times. Just because she can do something, doesn't mean she should. She grabbed the specs for the Palladium core and the Arc reactor designs and folded the rest and put them back in their respective boxes. She photocopied the schematics for the core and the Arc Reactor housing and also took pictures with her phone. She bit her lower lip when she looked at the boxes. Building one for Obadiah was one thing, letting him build a million… She shook her head and stuffed the designs in a plastic bag to preserve them and slipped them into her backpack.

Gwen copied the photos to her laptop and clicked on the application she'd built to turn Howard Stark's two-dimensional paper schematics into three-dimensional fabrication designs she could tweak. She smiled when she finally understood the how and why of the Arc Reactor. She could do this. Whomever Obadiah had working on it before should have checked for what went before instead of trying to reverse engineer it. She picked up her cell phone and dialed Obadiah's number. He picked up after one ring.

"Gwen, do you have good news?"

Gwen's smile showed through in her voice.

"Yes. I need about a hundred grams of pure Palladium."

Obadiah laughed.

"I knew you could do it. I'll have it for you by tomorrow afternoon."

"It should be ready in three or four days."

Obadiah sounded relieved when he spoke.

"Make it two days and I'll transfer a month of your salary immediately on delivery. Do it by end of day tomorrow, I'll make it two months' salary."

"Done. I'll get to work on the housing."

Gwen hung up and started tapping through the design with a stylus. She shrunk the dimensions by a factor of one thousand. She looked at the primitive schematic. She noticed it lacked any kind of shielding from electrical interference. A pulse from an EMP or even a high voltage shock could make it overload. She shook her head and spoke to herself.

"Howard, Howard, Howard. You helped research the nuclear bomb and didn't shield your new clean energy source from an EMP pulse?"

She didn't really consider that when he designed it a lot of the tech that they had in the twenty-first century would have seemed like science fiction. She added shielding and overload protection. By the time she was ready to leave for the evening she'd sent the frame, housing and shielding to fabrication. She stood up and stretched thinking of how much the extra forty-thousand dollars would help her family and friends; She wasn't thinking about what Obadiah might use it for, still somewhere in the back of her mind she must have been concerned. She had designed the reactor to be disposable, once the palladium core broke down from neutron damage it would just cause the reactor to burn out eventually.

Gwen glanced at the clock on her screen. She closed her eyes and then opened them. Afterwards she ran the schematics through her encryption protocol. They would technically be where Obadiah asked her to leave them but the chances of him accessing them in the next three decades were slim.

She locked her workstation and put her laptop in her backpack. She looked at the fabrication tech in the lab and sighed. She wished she could have a set for her lair, along with the supplies to feed them with material. She walked to the front gate and smiled broadly when she saw Adam was already there waiting for her. She got into his corvette and leaned over and gave him a kiss. He glanced at her as he pulled away.

"Is something the matter?"

"Nothing, now that I'm in your car."

He shook his head.

"Fine. Keep it to yourself."

Gwen pulled her seat belt on and shrugged.

"I just built something that could change the world, and I'm not sure the world is ready."

He seemed intrigued by the expression on his face.

"I'm not going to ask what it is, because I know you can't tell me, but was it a weapon?"

Gwen shook her head.

"No, for once it was something good for the world. I'm just not sure… I'm not sure it's going into the right hands."

"Well will Obadiah be happy?"

Gwen nodded.

"He's giving me a forty-thousand-dollar bonus if I can finish the prototype by tomorrow end of day. And if he gives me the material, I need by noon like he promised, I'll have it done by two."

"That could buy you a car."

Gwen shrugged.

"I'm fifteen, no point. Besides I'd have to pay for parking… I'd rather help my friends and family with it. That will pay for my tuition next year or will make sure Aunt May won't lose her house for unpaid taxes. She needs a new roof, a new dishwasher, the basement is leaking. It can do a lot of good for her."

Adam smiled and gave her a sidelong glance.

"You know, you pretend to be this prickly little pear, but inside you're a fuzzy peach."

Gwen gasped spoke with mock indignation.

"Did you call me a fuzzy peach? Are you saying I'm hairy?"

Adam stammered a few times. Gwen laughed.

"I so got you. The look on your face was priceless."

Adam blinked in disbelief.

"Oh my god, you are the worst brat in the history of girlfriends. How am I ever going to know if I offended you?"

Gwen blinked innocently at him.

"Oh, trust me, you'll know. Just ask my ex."

Adam drove into the Holland Tunnel, it was dark, the lights were out; He continued their conversation.

"Do I even want to know?"

Gwen shook her head, but realized he probably didn't see it in the tunnel.

"You know what, you probably don't."

He was forced to slam on his breaks and swerved. Traffic stopped suddenly. Smoke started roiling up ahead of them. Cars were at a standstill trapping them. Gwen glanced at Adam. He shook his head.

"I need to go see if I can help, you stay here Adam. You're too pretty to get run over."

He tried to protest but she was already out of the car and rushing forward. He ignored her warnings and tried to follow her. Through the smoke he saw flames. Heard cries for help. It was chaos. With the lights out in the tunnel there had been a terrible accident. Gwen was in the midst of the chaos, like a calm center of a storm. She was the only one who was not panicking. His eyes went wide as he saw her shove a car back with one hand while pulling a car open that would have needed the jaws of life with the other. He was stunned by what he had witnessed but he saw her pulling a young child out of the car. No one was getting close enough to help. He rushed forward and took the toddler from Gwen. Gwen pulled out an older boy, maybe six. The older boy was dazed but could stand on his own. Adam took his hand. Gwen looked back at Adam and gave him the most apologetic look he'd ever seen. Then she wrenched the passenger side door open and tore the center console down. It fell on the floor. The woman in the driver's seat had been knocked out when she hit her window. There was blood seeping from her forehead. Gwen pulled the woman out with little time to spare before the burning car was engulfed in flames. She held the woman in her arms and carried her out of the roiling smoke.

An older gentleman had spread out a blanket from his car. He rushed to take the woman from Gwen. Gwen did not resist him. He laid her out on the blanket. A woman in scrubs rushed up. She called out, "I'm a trauma nurse." Gwen moved back into the pile up proper. Adam moved to follow her but realized with the fire spreading it was getting too dangerous for a mere mortal. He watched Gwen carry injured person after injured person out of the pile up. Her clothes grew more and more black from the smoke as she did. After the last one she bent over coughing. Bystanders, apparently inspired by Gwen's heroics, had started moving the injured further back from the fire. Emergency services hadn't reached the Jersey City side of the tunnel yet. Adam grabbed Gwen's arm as she turned to go back in.

"You can't go back in there. You're having trouble breathing."

He looked at her hands, they were blistered and burned. Gwen shook her head and coughed more. She pointed back in, Adam tried to hold her back, but what hope did he have against a teenage girl who could lift ten tons? Gwen came out with an elderly lady and carried her to the rest. She laid the woman down and tried to start CPR, but she couldn't get enough air in her lungs. Adam moved her aside gently and started on it himself. She sat down against the wall of the tunnel and leaned her head against it. One of her hands hanging off her knee. She continued to cough off and on. She pondered adding an oxygen mask to her costume in the future. Not that she was wearing it for this mess.

Emergency services managed to reach them from the New Jersey side. She had taken half of the people to the New York side, half to the New Jersey side. Up ahead she could see a fire truck trying to put it out. One of the EMT's approached her with oxygen. She waved him away, pointing to the others. The man kneeled down beside her.

"You need oxygen, you're suffering from smoke inhalation."

She coughed and shook her head. She sounded like she'd been smoking for eighty years at this point. She was pretty sure it would heal quickly like it usually did, once her lungs cleared out.

"I'm fine."

He looked at the burns on her hands and arms. She tried to say more but dissolved into a coughing fit. She continued to wave him away towards the more injured people she'd pulled out of the pile up. The EMT relented and moved to another one of the injured. The elderly lady Adam had been trying to revive was already being helped. Adam came over to Gwen and he looked at her. He went to touch her arm then saw a large third-degree burn. He just sat down beside her. He glanced at her.

"So, uh, are you okay?"

Gwen nodded. She decided not to talk, she coughed less that way. He looked at all the people she'd helped.

"Are you… umm… I mean… can you explain?"

She nodded but didn't say anything, she touched her chest. He blinked a few times, then he nodded. The pair sat there beside each other waiting for the tunnel to clear enough for them to get through it, or back out of it. The two sat silently save for Gwen's coughing, which became less pronounced as the two hours it took the Port Authority police to reach them progressed. Because the tunnel was so narrow each car had to back out. An officer was by Adam's corvette he was looking around.

"Whose car is this?"

Adam stood up and held up his hand.

"That's mine."

He reached down and offered his hand to Gwen. Gwen took it, though her hands were still blackened from the smoke the injuries were healed. Even the third degree burns on her arms were just red and irritated looking. The officer motioned to Adam. Then pointed back towards Jersey City.

"You're clear to back out."

Adam nodded and got into the driver's side. Gwen stared at the passenger door she looked down at her filthy clothes and hands. He rolled down the window.

"Come on, let's go."

Gwen shook her head.

"I'm filthy I'll destroy your interior."

He shrugged.

"It's nothing a detailing won't take care of. I'm not leaving you here."

The officer intervened standing between Gwen and the car.

"You look pretty young, you were in the fire, you should probably be with your parent or an EMT."

Gwen blinked.

"Umm… he's, my boyfriend. I was just helping people out of the fire. I'm not hurt."

The officer looked skeptical. Gwen gingerly reached into the car and pulled her wallet out of the side pouch of her backpack and grimaced as she saw the black fingerprints, she left on it. She pulled out her non-driver ID card for New York along with her father's business card and offered them to him. He looked them over.

"Its fine, really."

The officer looked over the business card. He leaned down and reached into the car. He took her backpack out. He motioned for Adam to back up.

"Head out. We'll get her home."

Gwen blinked in disbelief she thought by showing him her dad's card they'd just let it go. Adam glanced at Gwen who gave him a small shrug.

"I'll let you know when I'm home. We can have that talk at the Crown Diner."

Adam nodded to her and started backing up. The officer rubbed his mustache then handed Gwen back her ID, he kept her father's card. He held up his finger and spoke into his radio.

"Hey, need a patrol car ready for a VIP. Get someone to call NYPD Captain George Stacy. Tell him his daughter's uninjured and safe."

Gwen narrowed her eyes. She glanced at the spot in her bag where her phone would be. She refused to touch it with her gross hands, but it was obvious her dad was tracking her somehow. Maybe her phone, but how would he have gotten into it? She played innocent when the officer motioned her back towards the wall and asked the officer what was going on.

"Did I do something wrong?"

He laughed and backed himself up. He motioned the next car out. Then five minutes later he motioned to the next car. He finally looked down at Gwen.

"Your dad knew you were in the tunnel and called the Port Authority on both sides asking about you. Heard of your dad. He's a good cop. Looks like you are made from the same stuff."

Gwen sighed. Sometimes having a Police Captain for a father was a bit of a curse. They started walking towards the tunnel entrance. He actually took her backpack and carried it for her. She was thankful especially with how filthy she was. She looked up at him.

"Did he really have you looking for me?"

The officer nodded.

"Hey, if it was my daughter, I'd do the same. What does he think of your boyfriend there?"

Gwen shrugged.

"I don't know, they've never met. But he was willing to let me ride in his new corvette like this, so he can't be all bad."

The officer chuckled.

"Seems decent enough."

The walk was longer than she had expected but she wasn't tired or hurt. Her injuries were healed up by now. She just looked like she'd been cooked, instead of actually cooked. A port authority SUV was waiting for her. The officer was older, and she wore the insignia of an inspector. She realized that would outrank her father. She motioned Gwen inside. Gwen slipped in; A blanket was already on the seat. The officer who had escorted her out of the tunnel put her backpack in the back. The inspector handed her a couple of wet naps. Gwen thanked her quietly and started going about cleaning her hands off. She pulled her seat belt on, and the inspector pulled out of the tunnel entry way and started heading toward an alternate route that would get them to New York City. The officer spoke after a few minutes on the road.

"I should have known the pink haired girl pulling people out of that wreckage was George Stacy's daughter. Man is built of steel. Makes sense his kid is too."

Gwen glanced at her.

"You know my dad?"

The inspector nodded.

"We were at the police academy together. You know he'd have my job, if he wasn't so stuck on being NYPD. Turned it down. Looks and smells like someone threw you in a barbeque. You're not hurt right?"

Gwen shook her head.

"I just really want a shower before I touch anything."

The inspector chuckled.

"You're lucky. Most of the people that you pulled out of there are suffering from pretty bad smoke inhalation. They're lucky, that is all they were suffering from. Lucky you were there. Lot of luck down there. Rescue was saying if the cars hadn't bounced apart so far, the fire would have spread quickly. Instead, there were only a few cars involved in the blaze. You wouldn't know how that happened would you?"

Gwen thought quickly then did her best to cover up.

"Uh, well, Spider-Woman showed up before anyone else did. She did most of it, I just pulled the injured out while she moved the cars, ripped the doors off and stuff. She really didn't want me there, but she can't do everything herself."

The inspector nodded.

"Well, I'd love to thank her, too bad officially she's a wanted criminal. Pretty lucky she was there."

Gwen shrugged.

"It's my fault. We, umm, caused some trouble for a drug cartel, and she's concerned they may retaliate. She's been keeping an eye on me. Guess it is lucky she was able to do that today."

"Is that so? Does your dad know what you've been up too?"

Gwen moved her head from side to side trying to figure out the best answer for that.

"Yea, mostly."

Gwen pulled some of her hair in front of her eyes, it looked brunette after running in and out of the fire. The inspector got a radio call, she responded she had a VIP passenger and couldn't take the call out. She hooked the handset back on the dashboard. She glanced at Gwen.

"You're in for a real treat, you'll be all over the media."

Gwen blushed and her eyes went wide. That sort of thing was for Spider-Woman, not her as Gwen Stacy. Gwen shook her head.

"They should be looking at Spider-Woman. It was all her. If anyone asks that's what I'm going to say."

They pulled up to her apartment. The inspector double parked put her lights on and grabbed Gwen's bag from the back of the car. She then proceeded to escort Gwen up the walk up and knocked on the door. Gwen's father and Erica answered the door. Her father's eyes went wide.

"Gwen, what the hell happened?"

The inspector offered Gwen's bag to Erica who took it. She put a hand on Gwen's back.

"Gwen here saved a lot of lives. Maybe you should go easy on her, George."

Gwen's father looked to the Inspecter.

"Sandy, thank you so much for getting her home."

Sandy smiled.

"No problem, George. I need to get back out there, some of us work for a living."

Sandy looked at Gwen.

"Gwen, stay out of trouble."

Gwen walked into the apartment and walked directly towards the bathroom. Erica and her father said goodbye to Sandy. Before Gwen could get into the bathroom proper her father cleared his throat.

"Gwen, what were you thinking?"

Gwen spun around to look at her father. She wasn't in the mood at the moment. Mostly because she was worried about what she would tell Adam.

"Children were about to burn to death. I was thinking I'd do the right thing."

Her father crossed his arms.

"You're a child yourself. Running into car accidents and fires… that is what the Firefighters are for Gwen!"

She clenched her fists.

"They weren't there, Spider-Woman and I were. You would have done the same thing in my place."

Her father shook his head.

"No, I would wait for the fire fighters."

Gwen narrowed her eyes.

"Bullshit."

She slammed the bathroom door and locked it. She pulled her clothes off and stepped into the shower. She turned the shower on and hit her forehead on the tiles a couple of times. Not hard enough to hurt but enough to take a bit of her frustration away.