Chapter 14

Gwen POV

After pulling open what appeared to be a fuse box mounted on a wall on the rooftop they stood on, Miles placed his gauntlet-covered palm on the surface of the screen inside the fuse box, which scanned his hand quickly then flashed green as the brick wall next to them popped open quietly.

Miles grabbed the edge of the swinging wall and pulled it open a little more until it was wide enough for them to slip through, revealing hidden hinges on the other side, and he helped Gwen step through the hole where there had previously been a solid wall and into a dark room, then closed the door behind them and flipped a switch to turn on dim lights. Looking around now that there was just enough light to do so, Gwen found herself standing in a small room with minimal accommodations, just a small, black leather couch and one additional seat in the form of a stool set up by a worktable with a large computer monitor on it, another single, even smaller room connected to this one leading into a basic bathroom.

Though Gwen could feel her limbs already beginning to regain their strength after her ordeal in Fisk Tower, she continued to allow herself to lean against Miles' sturdy form as he helped her over to the couch and sat her down before he began to look her over more closely, probably checking for injuries, holding her hand comfortingly while he did so, perhaps unthinkingly. When he didn't find anything too serious, he turned and began to walk away silently, though Gwen instinctively didn't let his hand go for another second before her hand slipped easily out of his loosened grip.

Grateful for Miles' calming presence here with her after what she'd been through the last couple days, Gwen told him, "Thank you. For coming for me."

Miles just nodded in response and walked over to the worktable and began to pull off his gauntlets one at a time before throwing them down onto the table's surface.

Noticing that he seemed rather comfortable here, Gwen asked, "What is this place?"

"One of my uncle's Prowler stashes," Miles responded without looking at her. "We hid out in here for two days once after robbing the place across the street. Security didn't die down for a while. They were convinced we were still in the area. But they didn't find us, and I doubt Murdock will either."

Once both of his gauntlets were removed, Miles' mask automatically retracted from his face and folded onto the back of his head, then Miles began to walk over to the bathroom, calling behind himself, "Television, on. News."

For a moment, Gwen didn't know what he was talking about, but immediately after he'd finished giving the order, the computer screen on the worktable activated on its own and began to play the latest New York Breaking News story, which currently featured the smoky remains of Fisk Tower from a panning helicopter view. "The fires have finally been put out, but we're being told that the damage to the tower is severe and though the foundations are secure, the building is being cordoned off indefinitely until further notice," a woman's voice said as a voiceover to what was being shown on the screen. "But the big question on everyone's minds is, of course, exactly what happened here. Wilson Fisk has publicly assured the media that he doesn't know of any rival company that he believes would do such a thing as an act of corporate espionage, and if this was instead some unanticipated act of terrorism, the PDNY has confirmed that the department received no threat, warning, or demands prior to the attack."

The image in the background suddenly changed to show a shaky recording, probably taken on a phone, of the smoking Fisk Tower before a streak of magenta light cut across the sky high above, and the woman continued, "However, this recording, confirmed un-doctored by the PDNY, suggests that the attack may not have been committed by either rival businesses or any recognized terrorist group, but instead by one of New York City's most dangerous under-the-radar figures: the super-criminal known as the Prowler. This video does not show conclusive proof, as the source that provided these images was unable to capture much detail from this distance on their phone, but Captain George Stacy has gone on record officially blaming the attack on 'the Spider-Woman's new partner in crime', claiming that the lights in the sky seen in this video match the trademark colors used by the Prowler that Captain Stacy saw when he fought the vigilante a few days ago.

"However, if it was the Prowler that did this terrible deed, it gets even more disturbing. Viewers advised, the following images may be inappropriate for younger children. If we zoom in closely on this video and play it frame by frame, we can see a dark spot that could be the presumed Prowler flying away, and then we see another vaguely-human figure get thrown away from 'Prowler' back towards the building, where they surely would've died upon landing. With this information, Captain Stacy has warned the public that Prowler is highly dangerous and, if found, should not be approached under any-"

"Mute," came Miles' voice from the side of the room as Miles walked back in. Immediately, all volume from the screen dropped before Miles looked back at the screen and commented, "You know, I actually expected worse."

He then looked at Gwen as though waiting for her to agree with him, but when Gwen didn't say anything and just stared back at him, Miles added in a concerned voice, "Gwen?"

Gwen wanted to say something to him in response, but she suddenly found herself unable to get a word out as she stared at Miles. When he'd come back into the room, his face was slightly wet from splashing water on himself to cool down and he was currently drying off his hands with a small black towel. However, neither of those facts had been what had gotten Gwen's attention. No, what had drawn Gwen's eyes was the fact that while in the bathroom, Miles had removed his leather jacket that he always wore as the Prowler, leaving him in only a sleeveless black undershirt with the Prowler logo painted on the front, and with his bare arms revealed to Gwen for the first time, she could see large muscles running up the length of Miles' arms, so well-defined already that she could hardly believe that his body was still developing, the very image of peak human capability for his age.

Distracted by this, it took Gwen a few seconds to snap out of it even after Miles walked over and kneeled in front of her worriedly, repeating, "Gwen? Are you alright?"

Finally coming back to her senses, Gwen pulled her eyes off of Miles' arms to instead look him in the face (which, admittedly, wasn't much better) and blushed embarrassedly before she recalled what they'd been talking about and asked, "What do you mean it's not that bad? They're blaming this attack on the Prowler!"

"Which, technically, it was me," Miles told her, then shrugged and added, "I mean, unless you blame Fisk. Which, it was really mostly on him seeing as he was the guy crazy enough to put remote-detonated bombs in every corner of his building. But that's not the point. The important thing is that they're not blaming you. Even Jameson can't deny that."

"Don't be so sure," Gwen warned. "Jameson will find a way to spin this so that it was my fault, I'll bet you anything."

Shrugging again, still apparently unconcerned, Miles responded, "Okay, fine. Everyone except Jameson is blaming me. That still leaves you relatively in the clear."

Confused, Gwen pointed out, "But you aren't. Spider-Woman may not be getting in trouble for this one, but Prowler is."

"True," Miles admitted as he got up from his knees and sat down on the opposite side of the couch, reclining against the armrest as he faced Gwen. "But I have a funny feeling they might not have much luck finding him."

Gwen raised an eyebrow at Miles' claim. He seemed pretty confident that he would be able to handle a city-wide manhunt for the Prowler, and though, having seen Prowler in action, Gwen would be forced to agree that his odds of evading the police were pretty good, it still seemed unlike Miles to say something so self-assured. Perhaps he had a trick up his sleeve for when they came for him. Either way, Gwen knew that just as he had been there for her earlier this afternoon and so many other times before then, so would she be right by his side when all of New York started hunting the Prowler, even when it caused her to face her father as Spider-Woman again, though such interactions were never comfortable.

While she was thinking about this, Miles had reached over to the worktable and grabbed one of his gauntlets as well as a small bottle of cleaner, then held the gauntlet in his lap as he began to shine up the metal with practiced ease. As Gwen watched him do this, she decided to ask Miles one of the questions that still resided in the back of her mind. "How did we survive the fall from Fisk Tower, Miles?" Gwen questioned.

Miles didn't look back at her and continued to focus on his work for another moment. Then, he answered, "In my shoes is a rare substance called vibranium. It's supposedly the strongest metal on earth, but I don't have enough to make any sort of proper weapon with it. Still, my uncle found a use for what little amount he had. He's the one who gave me the shoes. The metal is completely vibration-absorbent, so I can land from any height with complete silence and even relatively softly. And since it absorbs the energy from every footfall, I can also charge up my shoes just by using them."

By now having finished with polishing the first gauntlet, Miles set it back down on the worktable and picked up the other one to do the same to it, then looked at Gwen and said, "But the way the Prowler does what he does is pretty obvious just from looking at him. What I want to know is how you do what you do. I saw the web-shooters, but what else do you have in your suit? Anti-gravity soles like mine? Super-adhesive micro-fibers in the gloves? Three-sixty-degree early warning system? Strength enhancers?"

Never having talked about her powers openly before, Gwen tried to figure out how best to explain them and responded, "Er… no, none of that. I can just… do it. Here, watch."

And with that, Gwen gently took the gauntlet out of Miles' hands and placed it on top of one of her own, laying it flat on her bare, open palm. She then turned her hand over so that her palm was facing downwards, where the gauntlet should naturally fall down onto the couch, but at Gwen's will, it instead stuck firmly to the surface of her hand, eluding gravity.

His eyes wide, Miles leaned down to look at the inside of her palm between it and the gauntlet, looking for some sort of trick. When he didn't find anything, he looked at Gwen in amazement and asked, "So you… have, like, actual superpowers."

"Yeah," Gwen responded as she turned her hand upright once again and tossed the gauntlet back to Miles, who caught it. She had the sense that with anyone else, she would feel a bit uneasy to talk about her powers like this, but with Miles, her friend who still supported her even after finding out about her dual identities and, like her, was a young scientist who seemed merely fascinated by her abilities rather than appalled by them, all of the tension disappeared from her mind, as it always had with him before she'd found out about his own secret double-life.

Seeing this, Gwen silently wondered to herself if maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that her two friends had turned out to be the same person, if they could still make her feel this way. She recalled one of the last things her last friend, Peter, had told her before he'd passed, that he had become the Lizard because he'd wanted to be "special" like Spider-Woman. Perhaps, then, the best thing to protect Miles from a similar fate would be for him to already be "special" as the Prowler?

She was broken from these thoughts when Miles shook his head, still struggling to comprehend her abilities, and asked, "How? How can you do these things?"

Now, this question was much easier for Gwen to answer. She recalled the moment like it was yesterday, and she imagined that she would always vividly remember the day that had changed her life so completely. "It was at the end of my last year in Junior High," Gwen disclosed. "My science class took a field trip to this genetic research center owned by Oscorp. One of their specimens, a radioactive spider, got loose while we were there and bit me. The next morning, I was feeling really weird. My body had changed overnight. I woke up and found myself looking like I'd been hitting the gym for months. I didn't tell anyone about it, especially not after things got even weirder.

"Over time, I found out that I could do things like stick to any surface with any part of my body, lift weights there was no way I could actually lift, vastly outstrip national champion records in every sports event, sense danger coming before it arrived. I eventually started wanting to use these powers for something more, wanting to test my limits, and I chose to do what my dad did. I mean, in my own unique way, of course, but still. I went from dodging dodgeballs to bullets in a matter of days, and I soon found that I couldn't stop. So I made myself a costume and started doing it every night, and I kept doing it, even when… certain circumstances sometimes made me question if it was worth it."

Miles looked at her sympathetically, of course knowing what circumstances she was referring to, and reached over to place his hand comfortingly on hers. Gwen smiled at him, grateful for the way that his physical touch kept her grounded.

Then, Miles smirked back at her and said, "Okay, the story's great, but really? A spider bite? You totally made that part up."

Laughing, Gwen insisted, "No, it's true! It was a spider, some kind of experiment-" However, Gwen suddenly broke off as a new part of the story that she had recently discovered came to mind, and the smile fell from her face as she added the detail, "And that spider was created by the guy who kidnapped me."

Gwen felt Miles abruptly pull his hand from hers, causing her to look at him in confusion, but Miles didn't meet her eyes, blushing as he looked straight ahead and recalled, "The guy in red."

Still wondering why Miles had so abruptly pulled away from her, Gwen responded, "Yeah. He calls himself Spider-Man, obviously a play on my name. Actually, he got a lot of his stuff from me."

Miles was silent for a moment, then asked, "So, he likes- I mean, he's like you?"

"We have the same powers and gear, as far as I could tell," Gwen confirmed. "Other than that, there's a few differences. Obviously, I'm a not-quite-adult girl while he's a grown man. I think he might be able to see in the dark. And he's, like, seriously narcissistic. But he has pretty good reason to be. I'll admit, he's really smart. More than just 'gifted-kids-at-Visions-Academy' kind of smart. He built that spider-bot you crushed, and dozens more just like it. And I think he's the one who told Murdock who I was. He already knew when I went after him."

Miles was quiet for another moment, then said casually, "Sounds like this 'Spider-Man' has Spider-Woman impressed."

Gwen blinked at him in confusion, then replied, "Uh, yeah. I guess that's one way of putting it. He seems pretty capable to me."

Finally looking back at Gwen, Miles gave her an odd look that held for several uncomfortable seconds, then he asked, "Seriously, is he your boyfriend?"

Following this question, Gwen was momentarily speechless as she tried to process what she'd heard. Miles was asking if who was her what now? She remembered him asking this same question at Fisk Tower, but she'd passed it off as one of his less-funny jokes at the moment. Now, looking into Miles' pleading eyes, so desperate for knowledge, she finally considered that he may actually not know the answer.

Hadn't he figured out by now to whom she'd been referring when she'd foolishly told Prowler that she had a boyfriend, unknowing that the very person she'd spoken of had been underneath that dark mask the whole time? Yes, the situation had turned out even more awkward than Gwen could've ever believed possible, but hadn't she already handled it anyway? Hadn't she conveyed all of her pent-up, denied feelings for Miles in the kiss she had unexpectedly given him right before heading off to Fisk Tower? After all that, how could he still not know what she felt for him?

Answering Miles' question, Gwen replied, "No, of course not! Miles, there's not even a universe where I would like a guy like Spider-Man! Why would you even think that?"

Looking both relieved and embarrassed, Miles looked away from her again and bowed his head to answer sheepishly, "You said he impresses you. And he got all his gear from you. And you guys have matching names!"

"I'm impressed by him as in 'intimidated by him!'" Gwen clarified. "He beat me up and I'm acknowledging that he's a tough opponent! And the gear he got from me, he stole my designs to make, then had the audacity to claim that he 'improved' them! As for our names, how is it my fault that he chose to mess with me? If you ever got spider powers, you could be 'Spider-Man' for all I care!"

Getting defensive in the face of Gwen's angry disbelief, Miles asked, "And would you prefer that to me being the Prowler? Or would you want me to give that up too?"

Cooling down as she was once again thrown off by Miles talking about something she didn't understand, Gwen asked, "What? What are you giving up?"

Holding the metal gauntlet in his hand in front of Gwen's face, Miles sat on the edge of the couch and answered, "Being the Prowler!"

Shocked, Gwen stuttered as she asked him, "You're… giving up being Prowler? But- Why? Why would you stop helping people?"

"I am helping someone," Miles assured her. "The most important one. You wanted Miles Morales to be your friend, but you don't want him to be the Prowler. It hurt you when you found out. Well… I'm not going to be someone who hurts you. Never again. So if you need me to be just Miles so that you can be happier, then that's who I'm going to be. Someone you can trust."

Following this adamant claim from Miles, Gwen was frozen in bewilderment. When had Miles made this decision, or become so firmly set in it? Because no matter how much Gwen felt that she must be imagining what she was hearing, here was Miles Morales, telling her resolutely that he was going to stop being the Prowler… for her? But what had Gwen ever done for him to deserve such a sacrifice? Miles had become the Prowler to help people, and to overcome some sense of powerlessness following his dad's death. It must surely make up at least half of Miles' whole life.

Unable to understand, Gwen asked, "Miles… How could you ever want to give up that part of yourself? This city needs you."

Shaking his head, Miles argued, "It needs you more. And if I can do anything to improve the lives of both Gwen Stacy and Spider-Woman, then that's probably the most value my life could ever have."

Touched by that sentiment, Gwen nevertheless wanted to make sure to correct it. And so, scooting over on the couch until she was right by Miles' side, Gwen grabbed his hand, intertwining their fingers tightly, and turned his chin to make him look at her as she told him, "Your life has more value than that to me, Miles. And I don't want to be the reason that you sacrifice any part of it. I'm sorry for making you feel this way, because I don't care what face you want to wear, Spider-Man or Prowler or Miles or whatever. I trust you. You're my friend, and more than that, you're a good person, even if you don't see it, and I know that I can always count on you."

Miles continued to stare into her eyes for a moment, then said softly, "Can you please tell me who your boyfriend is? I need to make sure they know how lucky they are to have you."

Letting out a deep sigh of exasperation, Gwen told him, "Seriously, Miles? Alright, look, I don't actually have a boyfriend, okay?"

Rearing back from her in confusion, Miles wondered, "Wait, what? But you said-"

"Yeah, and I also said that I had tons of friends," Gwen reminded him, cutting him off. "Clearly, we were both lying at the time."

"But you were getting all… flustered about it!" Miles defended. "Unless you're just a really good actor, there has to have been some truth in that!"

Wow. Somehow, he still didn't get it. It seemed like Gwen was going to have to actually spell it out for him, to straight-up tell Miles that she had been referring to her feelings for him, but then she hesitated. Was it possible that the reason he was so determined to believe that she had a boyfriend who was not him… was because he didn't feel the same way?

After all, she'd been the one to initiate the one and only kiss that she'd shared with him, actually kind of forcing Miles into it, and he had not reacted or spoken of it since, almost like it was something that he considered a mistake that he would rather forget. If that was true, much as it hurt Gwen to imagine her powerful emotions being unreciprocated, then perhaps the best thing for her friendship with Miles would be to lie and say that there was nothing in what she'd said about having a boyfriend in order to make Miles feel more comfortable around her.

On the other hand, she'd already kissed him and revealed her hidden feelings. And Miles had just said that whoever her boyfriend was was lucky to have her. But she could pass off the kiss as a "heat of the moment" thing, and just because Miles thought her imaginary boyfriend was lucky didn't mean that he wished he were that lucky person. If Miles would rather have her as just a friend, surely Gwen should be able to make a sacrifice to let him have that. After all, Miles had been willing to do the same for her.

Or maybe, if Miles kept being Prowler and continued to work with her, they would grow closer as they continued to connect through their similar yet unique life experiences, mutually sharing the details of their double-lives and secrets exclusively with one another, and perhaps in that way, Miles would grow to like her in the same way she liked him. Or… he'd start thinking of her as a sister or something. Ugh! Why was this so complicated? Why couldn't Miles just already share her feelings? Her luck had always been bad, but couldn't she ever catch a break?

Apparently not, as the next moment, Gwen's Spider-Sense tingled, and then the door to the stash was kicked open by a man in a black uniform with red gloves, boots, and belt, along with a small red spider symbol on the chest and red goggles with yellow angular lenses obscuring his eyes over an open-faced, tight-fitting balaclava over his head, and wielding some sort of futuristic-looking rifle. Behind him, Gwen could see at least three more men of similar size and build equipped exactly the same way, making them look like four clones of the same person with their upper faces hidden.

However, as the first soldier stood threateningly in the doorway with his weapon aimed at them, Miles reacted quickly and leaned over to press a button on the worktable. Like it was angry at the man for kicking it, the stash's door abruptly swung back with a vengeance and shut itself once more, forcefully crashing into the man as it went so that he was closed outside with a loud crack as the steel door collided with him.

As soon as that was done, Miles jumped up, grabbing both of his gauntlets, and dashed back into the other room while saying, "Time for a bathroom break. Gwen, you'd better get changed."

Gwen quickly got to her own feet, nearly stumbling as she was still just slightly woozy, but her reflexes were still quick enough to catch her Spider-Woman costume when Miles tossed it to her as he came out of the bathroom carrying his jacket, then shoved her inside and closed the door so that she could change privately.

Then, as Gwen pulled off her hospital gown and began to don her Spider-Woman suit in record time, she called outside, "I thought you said they wouldn't find us here!"

On the other side of the bathroom door, Gwen heard a loud sizzling sound that Miles had to yell over to respond, "I don't know how they did it! No one knows about this place! But we'll have to worry about that later! I'm welding the door closed, but I doubt it'll keep these guys out long!"

Gwen pulled her mask down over her face and stepped out of the bathroom, then pointed out, "Or they could all just be looking for the bathroom. The one we have here is actually pretty nice."

At that moment, the metal door that Miles was kneeling next to as he welded it shut with the same electric torch that he'd used to cut their way out of GCT suddenly burst inwards, knocked completely off its hinges to land flat on the floor and forcing Miles to jump backwards before he was hit by it. Then, the familiar silhouette of Spider-Man appeared in the doorway, stepping over the fallen door to look at the two teenagers triumphantly.

However, despite the intimidating reappearance of her recent tormentor, Gwen couldn't resist making one more joke. Gesturing at the destroyed door and nodding to Spider-Man in understanding, Gwen asked, "Constipation, huh?"

The atmosphere of tension that Spider-Man had created was instantly destroyed by that comment, and with the eye lenses of his mask mimicking his face's expression of newfound confusion, Spider-Man asked, "What?"

Miles' Prowler mask formed over his face before he responded, "Inside joke. Now, listen, 'cause I'm only gonna warn you one time. If you leave right now, maybe I'll let you get away with killing my favorite door. If not, you'll be fighting both of us at the same time, and from what I hear, you seem smart enough to find out that we have you outnumbered."

"You clearly underestimate my capacity," Spider-Man observed, seeming completely unsurprised and maybe even somewhat pleased. "No matter, you are hardly the first to do so. But while your interpretation of the situation is admirably compendious though expectably denigrative, it is also erroneous on several counts."

At that, there was a momentary silence, then Miles said, "Er… okay."

To be honest, Gwen couldn't blame him for reacting this way to Spider-Man's long speeches and use of unnecessarily complicated words. She was hardly following along with what he was saying either, and she'd had a whole day to get used to listening to him.

Gesturing back over his shoulder, Spider-Man continued, "Even if the two of you truly did present any sort of genuine threat to me, I am certainly not alone. I believe you've already had the pleasure of meeting a few of my Spiderlings, and there are far more where they came from, each equipped with the very latest in handheld repulsor launchers designed by myself, decades ahead of anything Stark Industries has ever created."

"Please tell me you don't actually call your evil goons 'Spiderlings'," Gwen begged.

"They're not 'goons', they're mercenaries, patrols, minions, henchmen!" Spider-Man argued.

"What's the difference?" Gwen questioned.

"Being a henchman is a time-honored, respectable, reputable occupation of deliberate intimidation and demonstration of force!" Spider-Man explained. "Calling someone a 'goon' is… It sounds far more offensive!"

"Uh-huh," Gwen responded, not believing him. "And in their 'respectable occupation', does their boss even know who they are?"

"Of course I do!" Spider-Man insisted. "In point of fact, I'll have you know that I'm particularly fond of #23! He's the best at following orders!"

Gwen and Miles shared a short look of disbelief, then, as Gwen looked down at the ground and slapped a hand to her face, Miles told Spider-Man, "Whatever. Point is, we've taken down goons or henchmen or whatever before, and you're going to need more than that to fight both of us at once, no matter what guns you've given your pet army."

"Well, if that's how you feel, then it shall be a boon that I brought along a little extra help, yes?" Spider-Man responded, sounding very pleased with himself.

Right on cue, a second figure walked into the room to stand right beside him, a figure that both Gwen and Miles unfortunately recognized. Wearing his mask of purple and black and the same symbol on his chest that Miles wore on his own, Miles' Uncle Aaron, the original Prowler, made his presence known with a chilling revelation.

There was quiet for a moment, then Miles said, "Uncle Aaron… Come on, man. Eres mejor que esto. Help us take these guys down!"

Spider-Man laughed harshly at that and said, "But he brought us to you, Mr. Morales! He's here to help the winning side. Now, I understand that you two are supposed to be 'gifted students', so hopefully you are smart enough to see that you are outnumbered."

It didn't take Gwen long to mull over her options. Looking over at Miles, she said, "Maybe we should take this talk outside."

"You read my mind," Miles responded, still glaring angrily at his uncle, who held up his hands and began to say, "Miles, don't do anything stupid-"

Miles promptly proceeded to do the stupid thing, grabbing Gwen's arm to pull her tightly against him, then charged up his gauntlet, aimed towards the sky, and launched both of them out of the roof.

Following Spider-Man's warning about his goons - Sorry, henchmen - , Gwen assumed that they would be surrounded the moment that they exited the stash and reacted by shooting four web lines, one in each direction, and tugged hard on all of the lines once she felt them all grab ahold of four different bodies. Four human forms wearing the same Spiderling uniform surrounded herself and Miles in a protective ring, a human shield that was immediately tested as numerous yellow bolts of energy flew at them from below and repeatedly struck the now-unconscious bodies of the mercenaries around them.

Knowing that this protection would hold for only a moment, as soon as she and Miles landed back on their feet on top of the rooftop, they locked eyes and exchanged a nod, then Gwen leapt high out of the way, dodging laser fire in the air, while beneath her, Miles fired a shockwave of energy from his gauntlets that sent the bodies they'd used to hide flying in all directions at great speed, each of them crashing into and knocking over at least one of their other comrades.

However, Gwen could easily see that they still had a massive disadvantage. Whoever these soldiers were, they were professionally trained and there were still dozens of them. Even with her powers, Gwen couldn't dodge them forever. With every move she made, she took out another soldier or two, knocking them over, pulling their weapons from their hands, but they kept coming like their numbers were endless, causing Gwen's vision to begin blurring Spiderlings with their identical partners as they closed in around her.

Knowing that she couldn't afford to get tunnel vision now and risk her Spider-Sense becoming useless to her, Gwen shook her head to clear it and leapt away from the crowds, trying to get a change of scenery.

However, as soon as she was in the air, Spider-Man suddenly intercepted her from the side and tackled her off the edge of the rooftop. As they fell, the wind rippling Gwen's hood in her peripheral vision as she descended backwards towards the ground, Spider-Man grabbed her wrists with both of his hands and held them to the side to keep her from defending herself.

Using her ballerina-trained flexibility, Gwen folded her legs up against her chest and spun them around so she was on top then roughly kicked Spider-Man away from her, and he nearly hit the ground himself before he shot a quick web-line to catch himself, Gwen doing the same as she began to swing between buildings, trying to get him to make a mistake before she did.

The Spiderlings on the roof had stopped shooting at her now, probably not wanting to risk hitting their boss, but Gwen knew that they would probably all be focusing on Miles now, which kept her from feeling any sort of relief to be out of their sights. She just hoped that Miles was doing all right down there.

Miles POV

Miles was having a great time, mostly because he currently had plenty of targets for him to let out his frustration on. It had been foolish of these Spiderlings (still a terrible name) to attack the Prowler at night, on his home turf, but even more dangerous for them was to face the Prowler when he was as angry as Miles currently was.

He couldn't believe that his uncle had been the one to lead these guys here. Uncle Aaron had always taken care of him in the past, always stood by his side, and now out of nowhere he decided to help Spider-Man to fight him? What was his uncle selling out his family for? A paycheck?

The thought enraged Miles, prompting him to tear through these mercenaries and their stupid pew-pew laser guns with more ferocity than he'd shown Spider-Woman during their first encounter. Several times, he barely even remembered to pull his punches so that he could only assume that he hadn't killed anyone yet, but he was definitely putting dozens of Spider-Man's guys out of commission permanently, regularly crushing bones with every one he took down.

He'd disappeared into the shadows as soon as he'd gotten the chance, and as they were now all spreading out to search for him across the large rooftop with miniature flashlights attached to their guns, Miles ducked around the side of a brick smokestack and peered cautiously around the side. The magenta lights around his eyes on his mask had turned to a dark gray temporarily so that he could hide himself more effectively, and no one noticed him as Miles' scanners allowed him to easily pick out two soldiers coming near him.

Flattening himself against the wall, Miles held up one hand and extended the claws, then slowly scratched his hand across the bricks behind himself, just loud enough for the two men to hear it. Turning on his thermal scanner, Miles turned around and could see through the smokestack as one of the Spiderlings nudged the other and gestured silently towards the wall behind which Miles hid. The second soldier nodded in agreement, and then they both began to slowly walk closer to him, just as Miles had wanted.

Extending the claws on his other gauntlet, Miles turned his back to the wall once again and leapt upwards about twenty feet before stabbing his claws into the brick to hold himself there. The Spiderlings came around both sides of the smokestack, both of them jumping out at the last second, hoping to catch him off guard, but they both froze when they found themselves merely aiming at each other. Then, both of them realizing too late that they'd been tricked, they both slowly raised their weapons to point their flashlights right up at Miles.

Neither of them even had time to scream before Miles launched himself down towards them and grabbed both of their faces with his clawed hands before slamming them down to the floor and instantly knocking them both unconscious if not comatose, the shapes around his eyes shifting back to magenta the moment he attacked so that his masked face would be burned into their minds as they slept.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately for Miles, one of the mercenaries instinctively pulled back on his gun's trigger as he entered an unconscious state, causing his gun to fire a yellow laser bolt sideways, where it hit a wall and dissipated harmlessly but still made a loud sound and lit up the area with a quick burst of light.

In a matter of seconds, the other Spiderlings on the roof began to run towards the source of the shot, but Miles only allowed them to catch a glimpse of him standing over their fallen comrades before he clenched one fist quickly and was immediately shrouded in darkness. He heard and saw the Spiderlings firing at the spot where he had just been a moment ago, but he had already disappeared, the lights in his mask dimming once more as he slipped away unseen, unheard, unfelt.

To the soldiers, it would appear like he had just vanished, his body evaporating into a cloud of smoke that soon spread out to surround all of them, making them squint and cough through the overwhelming gas that didn't affect Miles whatsoever while they stubbornly continued trying to complete their mission despite their mounting disadvantages, and that was just what Miles wanted. To them, he was like a ghost, made to haunt and hunt them from the shadows, and the ultimate predator was the one whose prey couldn't see it coming.

The soldiers were well-trained and experienced, Miles would guess ex-military, but none of them were prepared for what they faced now. They quickly divided up into groups of two or three, all of them standing back-to-back with their partner or partners as they aimed their weapons in every direction, not wanting to get snuck up on again. Sadly for them, that was exactly what Miles would have expected them to do if he lost the element of surprise, and he had something better than protocol: adaptability.

Falling down in a crouch behind a pair of soldiers, Miles marked the locations of two more groups on either side of them, the only one here still able to see through the smoke, and roughly shoved them both unexpectedly, launching them off their feet so that they collided bodily with the two other groups, causing a general commotion as everyone's attention was immediately drawn to the sounds of scuffling and yells of fear and anger, no one quite sure what had happened.

Next, with numerous soldiers crowding around the areas he had just attacked to find out what had caused the noise, Miles armed the Constrictor launchers on both of his gauntlets and fired them right into the middle of each group, restraining four soldiers to the ground with one and five with the other. The remaining soldiers yelled out to one another and pointed blindly in the general direction of where the glowing nets had come from, but once again, Miles was already long gone by the time they started firing at him.

Standing on top of the smokestack that he'd hid behind before as he watched the "professionals" on the ground bicker and panic in general terrified chaos, Miles admired his handiwork as he prepared to finish them off and muttered to himself, "Almost too easy."

"Then here, I'll give you a more worthy challenge!" came a voice very like his own from behind him, and Miles spun around just in time to be grabbed by his Uncle Aaron as the older man threw them both off the edge of the building.

Fighting against Aaron's grip on him as they fell, Miles' anger renewed itself as he looked back into his uncle's face and said, "'Worthy'? What do you know about being worthy?"

Aaron had sent them flying farther than just back onto the rooftop, and Miles only managed to kick his uncle off of him when they were inside an enclosed alleyway, landing on opposite sides of the alley in sets of high-up fire escapes. Standing up and gripping the railing, Aaron asked, "What do you, Miles? What's wrong, man? Got bored of retirement?"

"Early retirement, at least," Miles joked back, though his face beneath his mask showed no signs of humor as he glared at his uncle. "Figured I'd try to get full benefits."

"You know what I think it really is?" Aaron demanded. "I don't think you got tired of the game, you just didn't want to do it with me anymore. But what do you care how that makes me feel? Long as you got your little girlfriend, you're good, right?"

"Is that what this is about?" Miles raged. "You're mad because I didn't want to do the 'super-thief' stuff anymore, and you thought working with the guys who want to kill me was gonna make me change my mind?"

Throwing his hands up in exasperation, Aaron argued, "I'm not gonna let them kill you, Miles, no matter what the Kingpin says. But you made an enemy of a lot of powerful people, and you ain't got me to watch your back anymore. And yeah, I'm hurt because you said you were done and now you're not just because that Stacy girl needed you. Well, I needed you too! I needed my partner, and he quit on me the day after I got back!"

Ignoring the fact that Matt had obviously shared Spider-Woman's identity with his uncle, Miles shot back, "I was done, man! But now I'm not, and I'm still willing to work with you! All you have to do is choose the right side!"

At that, there was a pause, and Miles hoped that his uncle was thinking over the offer. But sadly, at the end of Aaron's mental debate, he just shook his head sadly and said, "Nah. I'm sorry, Miles, but I made a promise over my brother's dead body to protect his kid. Well… I think this is the best way I can do that, so I'm gonna keep you from bein' stupid even if I have to drag you all the way home myself."

Fighting to keep his expression neutral as he watched his last hope go down the drain, Miles asked, "So that's how it is? We're just gonna be enemies, and you're fine with us fighting each other no matter what it costs?"

"Face it, man," Uncle Aaron told him, "I'm clearly the one with the most to lose here. That was my stash we just destroyed."

"Not what I meant, but at least you showed me how little you really care," Miles responded cuttingly.

Clearly wounded by the insult, Aaron glowered at Miles and finally made the first move in their now-inevitable battle, jumping up onto the railing of the fire escape before launching across the alleyway towards Miles. However, Miles reacted quickly, jumping up to grab onto the higher platform above his head and pulling his feet off the ground to kick his uncle back away from him, back to the first platform.

Uncle Aaron crashed against the wall with a grunt then fell back down onto his knees, but as Miles made his own jump across the alley to deliver a strike, Aaron's arm abruptly snapped upwards to grab Miles' throat just before he reached him, then launched both of them upwards into the air, dragging Miles along with a firm grip.

In midair, Miles flipped his body upside-down and countered with a burst from his own shoes that drove them back towards the fire escape. Just before he could drive Aaron back-first into one of the railings, however, the older man flipped them around so that Miles was the one that hit into it.

The blow knocked the wind out of Miles for a second, but he still managed to move quickly when he saw both of his uncle's fists about to fall on him. Reaching behind himself, Miles used his claws to cut the fire escape railing loose then grabbed the free bar of metal and flipped it around, holding it with both hands in front of himself to shove Aaron's hands upwards, then shifted his hands to one side and swung it like a bat to strike his uncle across the face, knocking him away and sending him flying downwards, where he barely managed to catch himself on a lower platform just above the ground, crouching on the railing and meeting Miles' eyes with a challenging look of determination.

Equally committed to his own path, Miles matched his expressions and charged up one of his gauntlets before rearing his fist back and jumping down towards his uncle, who readied his own gauntlet and leapt upwards to meet him.

Gwen POV

Knowing that she'd be disappointed but ever hoping that she might be wrong, Gwen looked back and, upon seeing the expected sight of Spider-Man right behind her, commented, "You know, our swinging rhythm is actually really similar. This doesn't look like it's ending any time soon. Don't suppose you'd consider settling this with a three-legged race? Pie-eating contest? Ooh, how about sewing? Did you know I make my own thread?"

Immediately growing tired of her jokes, Spider-Man shot a web line straight ahead so that it stuck to the side of a skyscraper in front of Gwen, then pulled himself forcefully forward to grab onto her before he kept flying forward so that they both landed on the wall. The window behind Gwen cracked significantly under their combined weight and momentum before Spider-Man kneeled against the wall with his knees sticking on either side of Gwen's hips to keep her from moving as he punched her hard in the face and asked, "Do you ever stop-"

"No," Gwen answered before he'd finished asking, shooting a web onto his face to blind him, and though she knew she'd only bought herself a second, she used that second to extricate herself from underneath Spider-Man and kicked him away as she bounced upwards to stick her feet against the surface of a higher window.

Looking down past her feet, Gwen could see a man inside the building beneath her leaning towards the window and staring up at her in shock.

"Oh, come on, surely you've seen weirder stuff in New York, right?" Gwen asked him, unsure of if he could hear her through the window even before he didn't react whatsoever to her question.

Soon getting annoyed by this, Gwen stomped on the window a couple times to get his attention and said, "Hey, dude, haven't you heard it's rude to-?"

Gwen didn't manage to finish her question and the next sound out of her mouth was approximately what one could assume someone would emit when they are abruptly seized forcefully by the throat. Mostly because that's exactly what happened, Spider-Man grabbing her throat mid-sentence then jumping away from the building before shooting a web line above him to swing them outwards, then back towards the wall with extra power to throw Gwen back onto the glass headfirst.

However, this time, Gwen was prepared and angled her body sideways just before impact so that she could stick to the wall and flip away unharmed. "And it's even ruder to interrupt someone in the middle of a sentence," Gwen finished, addressing this last part to Spider-Man.

"I liked you better as an experiment, you insufferable insect," Spider-Man responded, annoyingly refusing to humor Gwen's sense of humor.

However, Gwen got her comeuppance by telling yet another joke, one that she'd actually used several times before on past enemies. "Actually, spiders aren't insects, Mr. Self-Proclaimed Spider-Man," Gwen told him, insulted by his lacking knowledge of the very creature he was trying to represent.

"It's Doctor!" Spider-Man reminded her fiercely as he suddenly jumped towards her, and though Gwen tried to dodge, he shot a web onto her and pulled her closer before punching her through the window beneath them.

As glass fell all around her, Gwen rolled to a stop on top of some sort of large conference table, and as Spider-Man jumped into the room to stand in front of her, he commented, "I must admit, I find it very therapeutic to defenestrate you, Ms. Stacy."

Finally understanding one of the big words Spider-Man used, Gwen asked, "Is it still defenestration if you throw someone in through a window?"

Snarling in frustration, Spider-Man exclaimed, "Can't you take this seriously for just a moment? You're the second-strongest being on this planet, but you're ruining this fight for me! You're making this too easy!"

While Spider-Man couldn't see the little smirk playing at the edges of Gwen's mouth, she responded, "Maybe that's all part of my plan."

"Your plan?" Spider-Man scoffed. "Enough with the posturing, Spider-Woman. Admit what we both know. I've beaten you yet again! I am clearly superior!"

"You know, the first time was kind of unfair," Gwen told him. "We were fighting in a dark room, kind of like this one, and you could see and I couldn't. Almost like…" And finally, Gwen grinned fully as she looked up at Spider-Man and said, "Almost like you equipped your lenses with night vision."

Then, before Spider-Man could process what she'd said, Gwen shot a web across the room to hit the conference room's light switch, flipping the lights on.

With her eyes adjusted to the darkness up to that point, the light temporarily faded out the corners of Gwen's vision even if she had been expecting it. Spider-Man, however, was not nearly so lucky.

Miles had reminded her of this little trick when he'd used his "rechargeable flashbang" against a crowd of criminals, how even the smallest light in the darkness could be blinding, especially when one was using night-vision. She'd tried doing this same thing to Murdock, but his blindness had protected him. Spider-Man, however, didn't have such an advantage (which is probably the first and last time that Gwen would ever consider blindness to be an "advantage").

Just as Gwen had predicted, Spider-Man must've had his night vision scanners turned on inside his mask to give himself the ultimate combat advantage in a dark room like this after following her around in the middle of the night, and as a result, the lights blared in his vision, causing him to rear back as soon as they turned on, clutching his hands over his eyes and screaming in pain.

Not knowing if his powers would be enough to heal him from this or how soon they might be able to manage it but not waiting to find out, Gwen did a handspring back onto her feet and swung around to sweep Spider-Man's legs out from under him, then spun and kicked him back out the window while he was in midair.

Yes, she knew that she'd said she wouldn't attack a blind person, but she had decided that she could make an exception. Besides, it was good practice for when she planned to make another exception later.

As the newly-blind Spider-Man fell at least forty stories out of a skyscraper, Gwen jumped right after him, but for once, having no instinct to save the person who was falling. Instead, she shot a web line onto another building and began to swing in the most direct path back to where she'd left Miles.

She arrived back by the Prowler's stash building in mere minutes and her Spider-Sense tingled to direct her gaze into a nearby alleyway, where she could see Miles engaged in heated combat against his uncle, both of them jumping and floating back and forth in the air, their every punch creating miniature seismic events like a battle of demigods.

Fortunately, they were limiting the direct damage mostly to each other, otherwise Gwen would imagine that the buildings surrounding them would be completely leveled, but they both must've been well-protected against their own weapons, because glancing hits appeared not to hurt them too terribly while the alley was practically destroyed just from being the battleground for their fight.

Still, Gwen decided to put a stop to it and swung in to deliver a swift kick to Aaron's face, knocking him over just before he could attack Miles again, then swung upwards to stick to the wall above.

Miles looked up at her in surprise and asked, "You beat Spider-Man?"

"No need to sound so surprised," Gwen chided him, then gestured with her head and asked, "You want to get out of here?"

Miles gave his uncle one last look of disappointment, clearly torn between wanting to leave and wanting to finish this, but then looked back at Gwen and gave her a nod.

He jumped up and began to run up the side of the wall next to Gwen, and when they heard Aaron begin to follow them, Miles reached onto the back of his belt and withdrew a pair of what looked like small shards of magenta light. He threw the shards behind them as he and Gwen jumped up over the rooftop, and they exploded right in front of the original Prowler, momentarily forcing him to stay back and obscuring his view, and by the time he could see clearly again, Miles and Gwen had disappeared deeper into the city.