Chapter 9

Miles POV

Maybe Matt had a point, Miles had to admit as he leaned back in his chair during his first class the next day.

While his teacher rambled on about some important date in history, Miles only pretended to listen while his mind was still stuck in last night's adventure. Maybe the Rhino thing had been worth it. It had given him a unique connection to the Spider-Woman, which was what his job was all about, right?

No, he corrected himself mentally. I became the Prowler to help people.

But hadn't that been what he'd done last night? Only really because Spider-Woman had forced his hand, but he'd be fooling himself to say that he hadn't enjoyed what they'd done, freeing those trafficked innocents. Of course, it hadn't been the mission, and Mr. Nelson had already texted him about wanting him to call after school to discuss what had happened, but it had still felt good to do it. It had felt… right, and Miles had no qualms about his actions.

Besides, somehow working with Spider-Woman almost felt better than working with his Uncle Aaron, perhaps because his uncle had always been so keen on staying silent during missions for the most part, a trait that Miles had never quite mastered nor enjoyed, and Spider-Woman was always so eager to talk. He could pretend that he didn't enjoy her light-hearted attitude in the field, and he could recognize that it probably wasn't always wise for a vigilante to act that way, but her enthusiasm was just so infectious. Her company just made things more enjoyable, if only because she livened up the place in a way that the dark and brooding Prowler couldn't.

In fact, Miles almost felt a bit jealous of her. He had chosen a life where he fought monsters by becoming a worse monster. Spider-Woman had chosen the same life, yet she overcame the demons of this city with her own special brand of optimism and light. Before meeting her, Miles wouldn't have thought that such a thing would be possible.

Whoever her boyfriend was, Miles hoped that he had some idea of how lucky he was to have such a person in his life. If Miles had been her boyfriend, he would be sure to give her everything she could ever want, make her the happiest she could possibly be just to keep her with him.

Not that Miles would allow himself to fantasize about being "with" the Spider-Woman. As of last night, when she'd mentioned that she had a boyfriend, Miles had officially decided to abandon any sort of crush he may have had on her before that, instead choosing to be happy for her good fortune. It would certainly make his confused feelings for two different girls at once easier to deal with to have one of them out of the picture. A person with a soul like Spider-Woman's deserved better than him anyway.

But still, when she'd called him her friend last night, even in just an off-handed, distracted way, Miles had silently vowed that if Spider-Woman's boyfriend ever hurt her, that guy would be in for a whole new world of hurt himself… But he didn't want to think about that today. Even with his impending talk with Mr. Nelson coming up, nothing could ruin how well Miles' day was going so far.

Suddenly, his professor at the front of the class told them, "Don't forget, everyone, this Friday is the school's Homecoming dance and I hope to see you all there, so get asking. Alright, class dismissed."

His timing was perfect, and right after he finished what he'd said, the bell rang to excuse them to their next class. Still, that was quite the bombshell to drop on everyone on their second Monday morning of the school year, especially considering that they could normally expect longer than a week's notice for the date of Homecoming and Miles was certain that it hadn't been on the school's notice board.

Still, as Miles gathered up his pencil and notebook and shoved them into his backpack, then began to leave the room, he decided that it didn't really matter either way. It wasn't as though he planned on going to the dance. He was "the quiet kid" and didn't even know anyone that he could ask to the dance. Except Gwen, maybe, but that would be… weird, right?

Even if he did have a crush on her (which there was no real proof that he did, as the first time he'd drawn her in his sketchbook had been an accident and the ones after that had been… refining his skills), he certainly had no intention of making it seem obvious for her, or worse, embarrassing himself because he'd never been to a dance and wouldn't know the first thing about attending such an event, let alone inviting someone to it, especially Gwen, who he could only imagine was about as classy as a teenage girl could be.

Besides, he was supposed to be on-call for his Prowler duties. Of course, Mr. Murdock had made it clear that Miles could ask for a night off anytime and he would give it unless they had an emergency… But would Gwen even want to go with him? Not that Miles was considering going, but he was still curious. Was his maybe-crush even worth pursuing? After all, if Spider-Woman was too decent a person for Miles to get close to, Gwen definitely was.

What kind of friend would he be if he was so selfish as to let good, innocent Gwen Stacy get tangled up in the complicated life of the Prowler? It was tough enough for him to lie to her, but how could he ever attempt to tell her the truth? Or worse still, attempt to create a relationship with her that went beyond friendship without letting her ever find out what he really did with his nights? No, he couldn't hurt her like that. He'd just have to avoid the dance entirely, because he'd sooner ask out Spider-Woman herself than risk getting Gwen Stacy hurt by his reckless double-life.

Gwen POV

Homecoming? Gwen thought to herself with a sinking feeling in her gut. Following the announcement made at the beginning of her first class on Monday morning regarding the dance that was apparently going to take place at the end of the week, Gwen's mind was immediately busied with numerous thoughts, none of them good.

First of all was a painful flashback to the last dance she had attended, the only one she'd ever actually agreed to, which had been the complete opposite of what her teachers had assured them all would be "a pleasant experience". True, that dance had been for Prom rather than Homecoming, but in her mind, it made little difference. Peter had asked her to that dance towards the end of last year, and despite the fact that she was normally a bit of a loner, she'd gone along with it for Peter's sake.

Of course, she'd been teased relentlessly for weeks when people began to catch wind of the fact that she was going to Prom with Visions Academy's champion geek, but Gwen had easily shrugged all that off as she'd always done. Neither she nor Peter had ever been very popular in school, largely due to the fact that they hung around each other so much and got bullied even worse over their friendship, but they'd always been okay as long as they had each other.

Or at least, Gwen had been.

For some reason, even with her Spider-Sense, Gwen had never been able to tell how badly affected Peter was by all the bullying he'd suffered. He always acted like he was alright around Gwen, and she'd thought that he was just as capable of enduring the abuse as she was, but apparently she'd never really understood him as well as she'd thought. Maybe it was because he was always visibly weaker than her and thus suffered a bit more teasing, especially from Ned, but for some reason, Gwen had never noticed how very... angry it made him. When she'd walked into the gym on Prom night, she'd planned to make it as enjoyable as she could for her best friend, a night that Peter would remember for the rest of his life. Well… she'd managed the last part.

How was Gwen supposed to walk into that same gym once again, to risk repeating that night? Worse still was the realization that Miles was her new best friend and probably the only person that would conceivably ask her to the dance. She knew it was crazy, but she couldn't help worrying that somehow she would end up reliving her disastrous Prom night, and she knew that she couldn't possibly bear what happened to Peter happening to Miles.

But you know, maybe she was just overreacting. Maybe she didn't even have to worry about it. Maybe Miles wouldn't try to ask her to the dance at all. After all, he wasn't the most social person. She had a hard time imagining him being enthusiastic about something like a school dance.

But what if he does ask me? some part of Gwen thought worriedly. Could she tell him no without explaining why? An image of Miles' disappointed face flashed briefly through Gwen's mind and she quickly decided that there was no chance, especially since she knew that he'd take the rejection with such quiet dignity, kindly playing it off like it was no big deal just to make her feel better when it actually just made her feel worse.

It was incredible that he didn't seem to realize how much more adorable it made him when he acted so understanding like that. Not that Gwen thought of him as adorable, of course, she just thought that it was fun to watch him acting all respectful and understanding, and even more enjoyable to watch when he was being awkward in the process.

If he did ask her to the dance, one thing she could be sure about was that the night would be memorable with Miles by her side, and assuming that nothing reptilian-related happened, would almost certainly bring a smile to her face whenever she thought about it for years to come.

In any case, she probably shouldn't even be considering this. Prowler had told her that he'd stay in touch about their next target. What if he wanted them to steal something from some place on Friday night? What would she do, give some half-thought-out excuse and abandon Miles for the rest of the night? Not gonna happen, not even to go save people with Prowler. He would have to handle it himself, because no way would Gwen leave Miles alone after he asked her to accompany him somewhere.

Unfortunately, this debate continued in Gwen's mind all throughout the day despite how many times she tried to reach a conclusion. She kept going back and forth, wondering if she should expect Miles to ask her to the dance, if it was something she wanted, if it was something she should want, how she would respond if he did ask her, and many other contributing factors.

Finally, she settled on the resolution that she wouldn't ask Miles to the dance herself, nor would she expect him to ask her, but if he did, she would have no choice but to accept his request.

And so it was that Gwen walked into her last class of the day with her head held high, finally relaxed in her decision. However, as soon as she took her seat next to Miles, he leaned over towards her and whispered, "Hey, Gwen-"

Having never dreamed that he would ask her so soon if, indeed, he asked her at all, Gwen abruptly cut him off by sharply saying, "Miles, could you hold on a second? I just barely sat down."

She'd said it a bit louder than she'd meant to, and a few of the students around them started to quietly chuckle under their breaths, and one boy on Miles' left grinned at him and teased, "Oooo, you're in trouble, Morales."

Both Miles and Gwen immediately turned to scowl at the boy, who blushed and turned away to start up a conversation with a few of his friends. After he was dealt with, Miles swiftly retreated out of Gwen's personal space and told her, "Sorry."

Feeling guilty for her unintentional rudeness, Gwen told him, "No, I'm sorry. I was just a bit… preoccupied. What did you want to ask me?"

Miles shrugged and reached into his backpack to pull out a paper before saying, "It's not really something I wanted to 'ask' you, just something I wanted to give back to you. You left this in my apartment the other night."

Looking down at what he was holding out to her, Gwen recognized the paper as her Physics homework, which she must've left unfinished on Miles' table when she'd gone to chase Rhino. She hadn't even realized that she'd left it behind. Feeling blood rush to her face as she embarrassedly accepted the paper from Miles, Gwen quietly told him, "Thanks."

Seeing as the homework was supposed to be turned in today at the beginning of class and they could already see the teacher walking around to collect them from each student, Gwen didn't bother trying to answer any more questions in the few seconds she had left. She had only finished about half of the paper in Miles' apartment, which wasn't going to look good on her grades this early in the year, but there wasn't anything that she could do about it now.

Gwen was so certain about her early-year failing grade that when the teacher called her up to his desk in the middle of their reading period, she could only imagine that it was something bad. Nervously getting up from her seat, Gwen walked up to the teacher's desk. As expected, he pulled the homework sheet with her name on it from the pile of papers he was grading and began, "Ms. Stacy, this paper-"

Quickly trying to explain herself, Gwen cut him off, saying, "Look, I just got a little-"

"-carried away?" her teacher asked with a smile, cutting her off just as she'd done with him. He then continued quietly, "I just wanted to say that you did a great job, Gwen. Your answers are incredibly detailed and stunningly well-written. You're also the only person in the class that correctly answered my extra-credit question, so…" He leaned down over the paper and wrote a large "A+" on the front with a red pen, then winked at her and said, "Exceptional work, Ms. Stacy. You can retake your seat now."

Confused, Gwen opened her mouth to protest, but suddenly had a sneaking suspicion and closed her mouth again before nodding silently and going back to her seat as ordered. She resumed her studying for the rest of class and tried to act normal, but when the bell rang at the end of the day, Gwen noted the way that Miles quickly packed up his things and was the first one out the door.

Hastily stuffing her book and pen into her backpack, Gwen slipped and shoved her way through the crowd of students trying to follow Miles out the doorway and ran after him. She caught up to him in the main lobby and placed a hand on his shoulder to spin him around. When he met her eyes, he gave an infuriating little self-satisfied smirk and said casually, "Oh, hey, Gwen. What's up?"

Poking him in the chest with an accusing finger, Gwen told him sternly, "Don't play dumb with me, Morales. You finished my homework for me! I can't turn in work that wasn't my own!"

Seeming unconcerned, Miles just shrugged and responded, "You already knew it all anyway. It's not your fault that you had to go check on your dad. I mean, a supervillain was on the loose. Even if I was kinda upset at you for running off when I told you to stay where it was safe, I would've done the same thing."

Great, so now my new best friend is going to get himself killed trying to follow my example, a voice in the back of Gwen's mind said, but she ignored it and instead asked, "But how did you fool the teacher? I finished about half of my assignment, he would've been able to compare our handwriting pretty easily."

Miles' smirk grew and he said, "I don't like to brag, but I'm good enough of an artist that I can easily forge your handwriting given enough time, and I had hours of free time over the weekend."

Placing a hand on her head in exasperation at how he wasn't taking this seriously, Gwen tried to get through to him, "Miles, you still turned in an assignment for me that I didn't-" Suddenly, another thought occurred to her and she switched mid-sentence into questioning, "Wait, you finished my assignment, but Professor Blake said that I was the only one who got the extra-credit question right."

Finally seeming to get bothered, Miles looked down and admitted, "Yeah, I, uh… Couldn't think how to rephrase it on my paper. It would've been suspicious if we both had the same answer. But it's fine, I think my mom will be alright with me getting only 100%."

Gwen remained silent for a moment, then sighed in resignation and asked, "Miles, why do you have to be the most likable idiot I've ever met? It makes it really hard to be mad at you!"

Miles just chuckled and told her, "You know, if you wanted to repay me, you could always go with me to-" Miles suddenly broke off there as his eyes went wide before he grabbed the straps of his backpack and told her, "See you tomorrow."

He then began to walk away from her, but Gwen quickly grabbed his arm, amused by his behavior and somewhat eager to hear the rest of what he'd been about to say, and asked, "Wait, Miles, what were you saying a second ago? You want me to go with you… where?"

Miles gulped down a lump in his throat and said, "I was just inviting you… to come play video games with me after school tomorrow! I have a console and a couple controllers in my room, but then I realized that maybe that's not your thing, so…"

Fairly certain that this had not been what he was actually planning to ask her about, Gwen nevertheless told him, "No, I'd love to do that!"

Seeming genuinely surprised, Miles asked, "Really?"

"Yeah, I think that could be really fun," Gwen confirmed with an enthusiastic grin. And truly, it did sound enjoyable. They couldn't spend much time with each other during school hours, at nights when Gwen was usually out playing hero, or even on weekends, so this would be a perfect opportunity. Except… "Well, one thing, students aren't really allowed to be in each other's dorms together," Gwen said.

Miles put his hands up innocently and said, "I promise not to do anything. Although how you are supposed to keep your hands off this sexy body of mine, I have no idea."

Gwen laughed at his joke, causing Miles to look pleased with himself, though as always, he still refused to truly smile. Nonetheless, Gwen remained as determined as ever to eventually coax one out of him, and so remained unfazed.

"Alright, I'll clear my schedule for a few hours tomorrow afternoon," Gwen told him. "But if we get caught, you get to explain to my dad."

"Oh, please," Miles responded, confidently waving her off. "On the unlikely chance we did get caught, I think I could swing it easily enough. Like you said, I'm a very likable idiot."

And before Gwen could respond to that, Miles turned and began to walk away. Once again, she tried to follow him, but one of their fellow students walked between them and momentarily blocked Miles from her view, and by the time he had passed, Miles had disappeared from sight.

Miles POV

Retreating into his usual secluded corner of the building, out of both line of sight and range of hearing behind the empty cafeteria, Miles pulled out his phone and went to the contact he had most recently received a message from: Avocado, otherwise known as Mr. Nelson's number. For "security reasons", everyone who wanted to receive orders from the Kingpin got them through the contact of his trusted assistant, which Miles supposed made sense as he had a day job working as Mr. Murdock's partner at their law firm, meaning that he had 24-hour access to him even when Matt couldn't be at his father's office building.

For this reason, Miles was surprised when after he called Mr. Nelson, the voice that spoke to him, picking up after a single ring, was actually that of Mr. Murdock himself. "Hello, Miles. Thanks for calling back."

Still recovering from his surprise, Miles said, "Uh, hi. I wasn't expecting to be speaking to you, Mr.-"

"In the interest of keeping this conversation private, for the moment please continue to refer to me as Mr. Nelson. It's a far more common name," Matt requested. "Now, before anything else, I wanted to hear with my own ears the most important subject of our discussion: Did you find out who Spider-Woman is?"

"No," Miles admitted.

Matt tutted regretfully, but said, "Unfortunate, but admittedly not particularly surprising. Spider-Woman didn't get this far by being an amateur. It will take time for you to gain her trust at that level, but you're off to a good start. Which brings us to our next topic, the… shall we call it last night's 'fiasco'."

Wincing to himself at the mention of his mistake, Miles defended, "Look, Mr… Nelson, I really tried to follow instructions, but there was a… complication. We didn't count on Martin Li having trafficking victims in the building."

"Yes, I understand the trouble, Miles, and my sources suggest that you tried to stay on mission anyway, which is admirable," Matt said gently. "But the biggest problem is Spider-Woman. She went against your orders and chose to pick a fight with every one of Li's men to free those innocents, leaving you with no choice but to support her to protect your cover."

Well, that hadn't been the whole reason Miles had helped her. Part of him had wanted to help the victims anyway, and Spider-Woman had simply set the spark that launched Miles into action, but it was probably good that Mr. Murdock didn't know about Miles having such independent thoughts during a mission.

"So you want me to keep her on a closer leash, but isn't that exactly what we need the leverage on her for?" Miles questioned.

"Yes, it is," Matt said wearily. There were a few seconds of silence, and then Matt continued, "Perhaps instead of restraining her, we simply need to allow her to let loose for a while. I have just the thing for that. Keep your phone close, Miles, and Foggy will send you the details on your next mission later tonight."

"Understood, sir," Miles responded, and pocketed his phone as he heard Matt hang up.

Line Break

Later that same night, Miles stood in a dark alley with one of his palms placed on the brick wall next to him, listening intently as it transmitted audio from inside the building on the other side of the wall directly into his mask's headset. He enjoyed this part of the job, the stakeouts. It really made him feel like a "Prowler" to be hiding in the shadows and secretly spying on the city like this. So much of his job was about stealing some valuable piece of whatever that he didn't really care about, or picking a fight with anyone stupid enough to get in his way. Out here, it was just him, his thoughts, and the mission.

Suddenly, the steady stream of speech from inside the building was largely blocked out by the sound of a loud groan in his earpiece followed by the question, "How much longer are we stuck here?"

Make that himself, his thoughts, the mission, and Spider-Woman.

Looking away from the wall, Miles ignored her question and instead said, "You know, for someone who bases her superhero persona on a spider, you're terribly impatient."

"How is this impatient?" she asked. "We've been sitting outside this place for over an hour!"

"Well, we could've taken the direct approach, but after you caused that big revolú at Martin Li's place, I'm hesitant to let you get too close this time," Miles said.

There was a short pause, and the Spider-Woman said, "What does 'revolú' mean? I know quite a bit of Spanish, but I don't know that word."

"It's a slang word that means 'disaster'," Miles explained.

Sounding suddenly affronted, Spider-Woman protested, "But we saved all those people!"

"Yes, we did do that," Miles admitted. "But that wasn't the mission, not yet at least, and you making rash decisions like that could've prevented us from accomplishing our mission. I don't know how you usually do things, but my missions are too sensitive to have a spider keep jumping in the middle of things. This bar is full of criminals, and while I'm sure you'd like to take them all down, we're not here for them. We're here for information, not a fight."

"But couldn't we do a bit of both?" Spider-Woman's voice begged. "I'm losing it out here! I'm getting a whole new set of cramps I didn't even know I could get! Can we please go in? Ugh, fine! I'll follow your lead!"

"That's all I wanted to hear," Miles finally said, then reared back his free hand and punched his way through the brick wall, immediately causing panic throughout the entire building as he entered, and though the criminals closest to him all tried to scramble away, Miles swiftly grabbed one of them by the throat and lifted him into the air before he could escape, both to have someone to question first and to intimidate the rest.

Looking up at the terrified face of the man in his hands, Miles asked, "Alonzo Thompson Lincoln. More commonly known as 'Lonnie', but these days he uses the street name 'Tombstone'. His auto body shop supplied most of your bikes and cars out front. Where can I find him?"

As expected, he received no answer immediately, but the room's collective silence instead of a denial was proof that several people here must have information he could work with. Further evidence was how right after Miles finished making his statement, about half a dozen bikers made a wild sprint towards the door.

Touching his earpiece with his free hand, Miles ordered, "Block the escape routes."

The response was immediate, as when the bikers reached the bar's front doorway, Spider-Woman suddenly swung in while holding onto the top of the doorframe to kick the front one into the others, knocking them all over under each other's weight. She then released the doorframe and did a backflip before landing on her feet on the wooden floor. "Sorry I'm late, boys, traffic was tough, but at least I beat the evening rush, right?" she said, then gestured to the six collapsed men and added, "Literally beat the rush out, that is."

Miles sighed deeply to himself, though the corners of his mouth slightly curved upwards underneath his mask, amused by Spider-Woman's jokes though he wouldn't admit it. Not during a mission, at least. He was supposed to act more professional than that. To show said professional behavior, Miles asked, "The back door?"

"Webbed shut from the outside," Spider-Woman instantly responded. Miles nodded in satisfaction, internally thinking that tonight should satisfy Mr. Murdock's desire to have Spider-Woman follow orders better. Then, with Spider-Woman standing guard over the door, Miles returned his attention to the man whose throat he still held in his hand and said, "I'll ask you one more time. Where's Tombstone?"

Gasping desperately for breath, the man said, "Please don't! If we tell you, he'll kill us!"

Apparently they need to be intimidated a bit more, Miles thought before he suddenly pulled his arm back before throwing the man bodily across the room, yelling, "And what do you think we'll do if you don't tell us?!"

As the man crashed to the floor, several other hardened-looking criminals moving out of his way rather than risking getting hit by him, Miles noticed Spider-Woman take a cautious step towards him, but he stopped her with a discreet wave of his hand. He knew that as much as she wanted these guys brought down, she didn't want to hurt them and certainly didn't plan on killing them. To be honest, Miles was thinking along the same lines, but she couldn't ruin it now. Everything was still going according to plan.

At least, it was until the fall of the man Miles had thrown caused him to bleed from the head as he crashed headfirst into the table. Now, being able to see his vital signs, Miles knew that the man was injured but really only knocked out. To his friends, however, it appeared as though Miles had just killed him.

Desperation and outrage is a tricky combination, as Miles found out when every single criminal in that bar reacted to the apparent death of their comrade by letting out a yell and picking up the nearest things they could reach to use as weapons. Some grabbed shot glasses or beer bottles, others grabbed pool cues or baseball bats. It didn't seem like any of them had guns, but that was a small mercy when they seemed murderous just the same.

The angry mob automatically divided themselves approximately in half before each group ran towards either Miles or Spider-Woman, seeming equally determined to kill both of them. As the first person reached Miles, swinging a metal baseball bat from the side like he was going for the home run of his life, Miles didn't even flinch. Instead, he simply reached out and grabbed the baseball bat mid-swing with one of his gauntlets, then used the man's own momentum against him to flip him over a table and into the wall while yanking the bat from his hands. As the second person got close, Miles shoved the handle of the bat forcefully into his gut to stop him, then lifted the blunt end up to knock the man in the face.

Across the room, he could see Spider-Woman holding her own just as well, leaping over a large man that tried to tackle her, then shooting a web line mid-jump to grab a beer bottle that had been thrown at her. She then swung the bottle around her head once before throwing it back to hit the man who had thrown it first in the nose, knocking him onto his backside as she called out, "Nope! Sorry, but I say 'no' to underage drinking!"

Miles still wanted to convince himself that Spider-Woman's jokes were going to get her killed one day, but as an infuriated-looking woman took an overhead swing at her with a wooden baseball bat and Spider-Woman blocked the attack by simply raising an arm to let the bat shatter over her, then flipped around to kick the woman away while taunting, "Sssstrike! You're out!", he couldn't help but admit that she seemed to have things pretty well under control.

However, Miles had his own problems that he needed to be focusing on, as he was reminded when he looked up to see one man who was strangely well-dressed for a bar approaching him with a wooden chair held high above his head. In response, Miles launched up from the ground and jumped over the man entirely, grabbing the back of the chair and slamming the backrest over the man's head along the way, causing him to fall down unconscious, his outfit no longer able to make him look quite so dignified with half a chair hanging around his neck.

At that moment, Miles' scanners picked up movement in the corner, and he looked towards it to see one person, who he recognized as the barkeep, sneaking away through the front door while Spider-Woman busied herself with the crowd a few feet in front of it, not watching the doorway as she ought to have been, too busy enjoying herself with kicking butts and making her jokes to remember her job.

Mentally cursing himself for not curbing Spider-Woman's unprofessional attitude before, as he'd momentarily thought that he should, Miles powered up his gauntlets and roughly shoved his entire portion of the crowd away from himself, probably injuring many of them as they crashed through anything in their path as they flew away, but right now, Miles couldn't allow himself to care.

"Bochinche!" he called across the room to Spider-Woman. When she looked his way inquisitively, he pointed towards the doorway and exclaimed, "We've got a runner! I'll handle these guys, you stop him!"

Gwen POV

What'd he call me? Gwen asked herself mentally, never having heard the Spanish word that Prowler directed at her now. Given that this was the second unfamiliar word she heard from him tonight, she could only assume that he was using slang words again, but maybe now wasn't the best time to be asking Prowler such questions.

Looking towards where he indicated, Spider-Woman quickly responded to her new order and ran towards the doorway. A large man placed himself in her path, but she simply vaulted straight over him, crossing her wrists in mid-air to shoot a web line onto the shirts of two more men to her left and right, then forcefully pulled them both in to crush the man she'd jumped over between their bodies, knocking all three out in one move, and then rushed out the door.

Once outside in an open area, Gwen was free to use her powers to their full extent, and began to run across the street before leaping up high to get to a vantage point from which to survey the scene. While her jumps weren't nearly as powerful as Prowler's, she was still able to get up several stories in a single bound and stuck to the wall across the street before turning around to look around with one hand still holding fast to the vertical surface.

Fortunately for her, in addition to the street being mostly empty this late at night in this run-down part of the city, if the man she was chasing was trying to flee the scene, he wasn't doing a very good job of it. She spotted him almost immediately, not even requiring the assistance of her Spider-Sense though it tingled annoyingly just the same.

He was high-tailing it down the sidewalk in such a rush that he was repeatedly tripping over his own shoes, frankly lucky not to have fallen on his face yet. Or perhaps she'd thought that too soon, as immediately after it had gone through her mind, the man took a particularly rough tumble over his own feet and began to fall forward.

Fortunately for him, there just so happened to be a superhero in the area, and Gwen shot a web line to grab his ankle just before he could hit the ground, then pulled him up to dangle upside-down next to her. "Woah, slow down there, buddy. Slip'n'slide sidewalk season isn't until at least November," she told him.

Hanging inverted with his eyes level with the lenses of Gwen's mask, the man let out a frightened yell and begged, "Please, no! Look, I didn't mean to run, but I don't want anything to do with you superpowered freaks! New York's crazy enough already! Please don't kill me!"

"Give us a reason not to," came a voice from above them, and both Gwen and the man looked up to see the shape of Prowler crouching on a windowsill above them, the magenta outlines of his eyes shining menacingly, the only clear part of his outfit amidst the shadows, though the tri-point collar behind his head and the faint glint of metal on his hands certainly added to the effect. "Tell us where we can find the man they call Tombstone," Prowler added.

Despite the cool night air, sweat ran up the man's face instead of down due to his position as he responded, "I- I can't. You don't understand. He'll kill me!"

"Why does everyone keep telling me that?" Prowler asked. "Fine. I guess we'll have to do this the hard way."

With that, Prowler snapped out the claws on one of his hands and held a single claw up next to the web line suspending the man twenty feet above the ground, hanging in the perfect position to snap his neck immediately upon landing. Gwen opened her mouth to protest what Prowler was insinuating that he would do, but then decided to remain quiet for now and trust him. Perhaps it was merely a trick meant to make the man talk. She didn't know if she would've been able to resort to such means of intimidation to get her enemies to cooperate, but surely Prowler wouldn't actually try to follow through on his threat, not after how gentle he had seemed to the trafficked people they'd saved last night. But if he did… Well, she'd just have to stay ready to save the man if Prowler made the wrong move.

Upon seeing Prowler's claws next to the web, the man's eyes widened as he entered a new level of terror and he desperately yelled out, "WAIT! Please, stop, I'll tell you everything!"

"And you'll make it quick, yes? Because my patience is wearing thin already," Prowler said, moving his claw even closer to the web line as he emphasized the word "thin", as though to remind the man of how very easily the web could be cut to drop him to his doom.

Nodding furiously, the man replied, "Yes, of course! Tombstone's set up in Harlem, place called Abe's Auto Repair. And I have it on good authority that he doesn't leave the place much! Just… don't tell him I told you, or he'll have my head!"

"I'll consider it," Prowler said cryptically, then to Gwen's surprise, immediately proceeded to cut the web line. The man let out a yell as he began to fall, and Gwen instantly jumped after him as she'd prepared herself to do, though she was still mentally trying to recover from her shock and honest disappointment that Prowler had turned out to be a heartless criminal after all.

However, before she could reach the man to save him from his fall, a blur of black shot past her and snatched the man away from her clutches. A second later, Prowler landed on his feet on the ground holding the man by the front of his shirt, and though he distastefully shoved the man away as soon as they reached the earth, Gwen recognized that he had still saved the man from the very fate that she'd believed he'd condemned him to.

Then, as he watched the terrified man stumble away as Gwen shot a web upwards to slowly lower herself down just behind Prowler, she heard him say, "Abe's Auto Repair, Harlem. I'll get our trap set up. Meet me there tomorrow at 10 p.m., sharp."

He then began to walk off, but Gwen called after him, "Hey, wait a second!"

"Whatever it is, it can wait until tomorrow," Prowler told her without turning to face her.

"No, actually it can't, because I may not be there!" Gwen told him irritably.

That made him stop in place, appearing to think over her words before he looked back over his shoulder and asked, "What are you talking about?"

"I'm starting to wonder about our arrangement," Gwen said with a glare as she stepped towards him. "Yesterday we did things my way, so I was willing to give it a shot doing it yours tonight. I followed orders, I played by your rules, and I got the bad guy."

"After you let him escape," Prowler added as he turned to face her fully, wearing a glare of his own.

However, Gwen didn't back down and firmly retorted, "So the job gets rough sometimes, big deal! I still caught him. But I'm not alright with the way you're acting. You've been threatening people all night, putting pressure on normal humans to make them give you what you want. Well, they can't do what we can, and you can't just use your power to manipulate them while they're helpless to do anything to stop you!"

"I'll do whatever it takes to protect my home," Prowler growled back at her.

Gesturing up at the remains of her broken web line hanging from the wall above them, Gwen argued, "'Anything', huh? Like killing that guy?"

"He was in no danger," Prowler insisted.

"Oh, really?" Gwen asked sarcastically, folding her arms over her chest as she looked at him doubtfully. "Well, at the very least, you wanted to scare him by making him think you were going to do it."

Prowler spread his arms and angrily told her, "Well, what did you expect? Scaring people is what I do. I'm the Prowler, not some witty smart-mouth Spider-person. Maybe you haven't noticed, but I don't have your abilities, Spider-Woman. That means I have to do things differently. You think having Jameson on your back every night is bad? I have to spend the rest of my vigilante career being worse than my enemies in order to beat them. So you can complain all you want about how I do things, but I get results, and I do it without all your fancy powers."

Gwen hadn't thought of it like that before. When she'd first gotten her powers and felt the need to separate herself from normal people, she'd considered her abilities a curse. They'd forced her to quit her band, they'd strained her relationship with her father… And of course, they'd taken her best friend from her forever.

Now, Prowler was basically telling her that her powers were in fact a blessing that helped her do what she did every night. After all, Prowler did the same thing she did, but he'd had to work for every part of it. He'd put in effort rather than just getting bit by some spider, yet continued to do the right thing, and now Gwen was trying to criticize him for his methods?

Looking down, Gwen sadly said, "That's not right."

"That's reality," Prowler responded sternly. "Wishing things were better isn't going to make them that way. Take it from me, Spider-Woman, this world eats up good people just because they show a soft side."

Shrugging to herself helplessly, Gwen asked, "So I just give up on people? On the world?"

Prowler leaned forward as though he was about to answer, but then he hesitated and sighed before saying, "No. That's my job. The world needs idealists like you to keep realists like me in check. So you can do things your way, but let me do them mine."

Gwen wasn't entirely sure how to process what she was hearing. For the last year, she'd thought that she must be the loneliest person in the city. Now… she thought that Prowler could easily be a worthy contender for the title. She wondered what had happened in his life to make him like this, just so full of pain and rage at the world that he went out every night and protected people by directing his suffering onto criminals. She'd never before wanted so badly to know who was behind Prowler's mask than in this moment, to know his story that must be nearly equally as bad as either hers or Miles'.

However, she knew that he wouldn't be sharing that secret with her (at least not anytime soon), so she simply took a deep breath and nodded before agreeing, "Okay. I may not like the way you do things, but I can accept it. As long as you don't actually kill anyone."

"I make no promises," Prowler said warningly, and a knot formed in Gwen's chest, but then quickly unraveled again as he added, "But I'll do my best. I never saw the old Prowler kill anyone, and I'm trying to live up to his legacy."

Interested by this piece of information, as Gwen had completely forgotten about this Prowler mentioning that he knew the other one during their first meeting, she asked, "How exactly do you know the other Prowler? Were you partners or something? Are you his son?"

Suddenly looking uncomfortable, Prowler looked around and said, "We should probably be leaving now. The cops could be here any second."

Noticing that he hadn't answered her question, Gwen said, "Okay. But can we still talk about this on the way… wherever? I don't know about you, but I still have to cross the East River tonight." Seeing him fidgeting as she said that, Gwen happily determined, "You're going that way too, aren't you?"

Sighing to himself, Prowler said, "I have to make a stop in Brooklyn, somewhere that you will not follow me. But fine, you can ask a couple questions about the other Prowler on the way, but nothing about his identity, alright?"

Excited to hear this, Gwen immediately nodded her agreement. Unfortunately, at that very moment, a police squad car started to come down the road towards them, blaring its sirens.

Looking towards it, Prowler muttered, "I told you that we should've left sooner."

Shrugging to herself without concern, Gwen shot a web line towards the rooftop across the street from them and responded, "What are you talking about? We're already gone." And with that said, she yanked on her line and pulled herself into the air, using her other hand to shoot another line backwards to grab onto the back of Prowler's jacket as she did so, who got pulled along with her with a surprised grunt and numerous mumbled curses in Spanish.

Gwen continued to drag him for a while until she eventually set down to run along a wall between two buildings, and Prowler cut the web off of himself as he fell down to run along the opposite wall. Then, narrowing his eyes as he looked across the divide at her, he said, "Could you not pull me around with your webs again? That was a terrible experience."

Smirking to herself beneath her mask, Gwen just responded, "Just consider it payback for when you grabbed me at GCT."

As they began to run out of space to run on the walls, Prowler looked over to her and held out a hand invitingly. Barely thinking about it, Gwen jumped over towards him and grabbed his hand, and he immediately jumped off the wall, his shoes hovering over the rail of a fire escape railing for a few seconds, then launched them upwards and forwards so that they landed on the roof of a building across the street, from which point they continued to run onwards and continued their conversation as though there had been no break.

"I don't seem to recall dangling you from a rope when I dragged you out of there," Prowler said.

"Yet I definitely recall you forcefully throwing me over your shoulder like a bag of turnips, so I think this makes us even," Gwen replied. "But back to our earlier conversation, what's up with the other Prowler?"

They reached the edge of the rooftop and Prowler looked like he was preparing to jump across the street once again, but Gwen tapped his shoulder to get his attention and pointed instead towards a large yellow crane hanging high above them. Nodding in understanding, Prowler changed the aim of his jump so that he launched up onto the extending arm of the crane, Gwen swinging up right after him on her webs.

They began to run through the inside of the crane arm, still heading southeast, and Prowler told her, "Well, first of all, me and the other Prowler are… related, but I'm not gonna say how."

"Understandable, go on," Gwen prompted.

"Well, I trained with him for a few months, but I didn't become the Prowler myself until the night after he fought you. When you messed up his arm, he said that he couldn't do it anymore and told me that I would have to take his place," Prowler continued.

Wincing at the memory, Gwen said, "Yeah, well, if you see him again, tell him that the thing with the tower was a total accident. Not that it helps much, I guess, but still. But if you became the new Prowler, does that mean that he isn't the Prowler anymore?"

"Well, he hopes that he'll recover eventually, but for now, it looks like his days of being the Prowler are over," Prowler said regretfully.

Gwen let out a deep breath and said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I'm kind of glad for that. Definitely don't take this the wrong way, but frankly, I like you better than the old one. Besides, can you imagine if there were two of you going by the same name? Oh, it'd get so confusing! One Prowler is plenty."

Prowler chuckled to himself, his voice modulator making it sound oddly sinister, and leapt off the end of the crane with Gwen following closely behind as they dived fearlessly back towards the ground.

Their shared journey took them across the East River and into Brooklyn, and Gwen found herself oddly comfortable in Prowler's presence. Maybe not "Miles" levels of comfort, but he was strangely enjoyable company and rather easy for her to relate to. For one, she'd never been able to swing around the city with someone by her side, given that hardly anyone could ever keep up with her and the few that could were usually trying to kill her.

However, the excitement began to wear off and was slowly replaced by building nervousness as they got closer and closer to Visions Academy and Prowler still hadn't made any indication of leaving her side any time soon. The tension was causing her to get quieter as time went on and they continued to get closer to the academy, though this was fortunately covered up as Prowler also seemed to have run out of things to talk about and had gone rather silent himself. Soon enough, they passed right by the school, yet Gwen didn't dare to stop here and risk letting Prowler figure out where she went to school each day, so she just silently continued following him right past the building.

They went a few blocks past Visions Academy, and Gwen was just about to come up with some random excuse to hang back so that Prowler wouldn't see her go back towards the school when he finally said, "Alright, here's far enough. I should be getting back to my secret base now. Do you think you can find your way home from here?"

Inwardly laughing at her good fortune as well as the irony of his question, Gwen responded, "Yeah, I think I'll be alright."

Prowler nodded at her and said, "Alright then. In that case, I'll see you tomorrow at 10 p.m., Spider-Woman. If you're still on board with our partnership, of course."

Without hesitation, Gwen responded, "I'll be there."

Prowler nodded to her one more time, then walked towards the left side of the rooftop they were on and dropped out of sight.

Letting out a deep breath that held all of her built-up fear from the last ten minutes, Gwen turned around and walked instead off the right side of the roof before swinging towards the school. She wasn't worried about being followed. Even if she had doubts about Prowler's respect for her secret identity at this point, which she didn't, he had gone north whereas she was heading towards the south side of the school, where all the female dorms of Visions Academy were located.

Still, she would have to be more careful about suggesting where she and Prowler could go together. Tonight, it had gotten too close to disaster, though she thought that she'd played it off quite well overall.