Miguel explains the multiverse to us, how they see it as the Web of Life and Destiny. This web is what keeps the stability of their universes together by certain totems, the spider-person of their universe, going through these canon events that define who they are. Miguel and his allies, known as Spider-Society, protect this Web.

Gwen cuts in, "What's that got to do with Coryn?"

"Tres razones," Miguel says, holding up three fingers. "First, there are no variants in any universe for a symbiote called Havoc. I'd captured it before but it slipped away after assimilating another symbiote capable of multiversal travel. I'll admit, returning variants slipping into your universe before we could detect it? Not a bad plan. But it allowed us to find a sample of the symbiote and scan its genetic code and yours, Coryn Andrews."

LYLA appears again. "No matches, Miguel."

"Second, no Spider has ever fallen in love with someone already infected by a symbiote host."

"Why does that matter?!" Gwen shouts.

"It matters, kid. Trust me." Miguel furrows his brow as LYLA appears once more, shaking her head. "Finally… there are no variants of a 'Coryn Andrews' anywhere within the multiverse."

Gwen's stance deflates and she looks in my direction, the disbelief in her eyes and voice making my heart sink. "W-what?"

"That's right," Miguel says with finality. "You two… being together… disrupts the canon events Spider-Woman is supposed to go through and it could erase everything in your universe."

"How do you know this?" I ask, my voice shaking, struggling to comprehend how Gwen and I being together could have such a consequence.

"Oh I know, kid," Miguel answers with a solemn voice. LYLA appears and pulls up holographic screens that show Miguel losing everything and his daughter… twice. "So…" His tone becomes threatening. "I need you to come with me to prevent that from happening."

"Stop!" Gwen shouts, her voice trembling as she aims her webshooter at Miguel, "What are you trying to do with Coryn?!"

Shadows, like dots of black being sprinkled over a painting, cover the windows spanning up along the spire.

Miguel's mask reforms with digital sparks. "We have to remove him from the canon."

Coryn, Havoc says to me, We are surrounded. We have to fight.

Miguel lunges toward me. Red blades extend from forearms, swiping through a length of web that Gwen shoots at him. I feel Havoc's mass shift into my arms, forming cragged shields. A thud emits with resonant force when I bash a shield into Miguel, tossing him aside. Gwen fires another web rope, catching Miguel this time, the momentum ricocheting him back as she slings him into an opposite wall.

"Coryn!" Gwen calls out to me after jumping to a platform above. I leap up to join her before we're sprinting up walls together. Then I start to see them. Silhouettes of myriad builds and color, all wearing a spider symbol, all wearing masks reminiscent of Gwen's. They're cutting off exits and dropping from ceilings. In only a moment, Gwen and I are flipping around strands of webs flying from all directions, my claws tearing through any blocking our way.

"It's like a costume party that's weirdly well-organized!" Gwen jokes, keeping me grounded even now.

One Spider-Man, with a sophisticated British flag design, dives toward us but I catch him by the collar and toss him into another with Doc Oc arms.

Gwen cries out in pain, falling to her knees as her body starts to shimmer and glitch, just like with the multiversal drifters we'd dealt with in the past.

"Gwen!" I shout, bulldozing through a spider wearing a Spider-Man suit, a Spider-Man wearing a crescent moon cape, and another silver armored variant.

"It's," she says, catching her breath, "it's happening again."

"Because this isn't your universe," I realize.

"W-what do we do?" Gwen stammers.

"We get clear of them first so Havoc can form a portal to get you back home!"

"What about you?!" she asks but I don't have an answer for her.

Coryn, you are not thinking of…

I don't know what I'm thinking, Hav… let's just focus on getting out here.

"Come on," I say as we start climbing the spire again.

If what Miguel says is true, even if he's wrong, the questions remain. Am I willing to risk my universe for my own life? Am I willing to risk the lives of my family? Am I willing to risk Gwen's? And what worth is my life against theirs, or even without theirs?

Miguel's voice plays over speakers, "He's wearing a symbiote! They're weak to loud sounds!"

I hear Spider-people all expressing that recollection.

Multitudes of webs braid patterns of grid-like nets around us. Using my new webshooters, I release strands of my own while Havoc's biomass forms fangs along their length. These barbed wires lash about, shredding them before a wave of sound hits me. I reel, clutching my ears that feel like they're going to burst. My eyes see more Spider-Men, now carrying sonic cannons or gauntlets like Shocker's.

My Havoc suit bubbles as I shout to Gwen. "Get down!"

She sticks to the floor before my suit erupts with a flurry of Havoc's tendrils. The bio-lances hurl Spider-people all around us and shatter the windows of the spire. Shards fall like sharp rain as our pursuers take cover or gather webbing for shields. With less footholds to climb on, the ones scaling the building halt their advance.

I cover Gwen from deadly hail as she wraps her legs around my waist and slings us up to the top floor.

Gwen yells in pain again as she glitches once more. I throw another piece of Havoc and form a portal quickly.

"Come on!" I say, grabbing Gwen, "We need to get you home!"

But Gwen wrestles her arm from my hand, yanking off her mask. Her hair clings to her face, her cheeks flushed from running and anger, eyes watering. "No! I can tell what you're thinking, Coryn! You're gonna send only me through the portal, aren't you?! I'm NOT leaving without you!"

My mask dissolves away and I can't deny it. With a pained smile, I say, "You're right… I can never get anything past you, huh?"

"Please, Coryn," Gwen says, grabbing my hand, "There has to be some way you can stay!"

"I wish there was… but there isn't," Miguel O'Hara says, dropping from the roof between us and the portal, humming with interdimensional energy. "Even if his Symbiote were a Venom."

"But I'm not Venom," I say, my voice trembling.

"And that's part of the problem. If you were a Venom, even a Carnage, you would have been Spider-Woman's enemy, a shaky ally at best. But you wouldn't be in love with her. I'll have LYLA investigate who your Spider-Woman is more in-depth later, cause I'm still looking into a collider that punched a hole in the multiverse," Miguel explains as his mask disappears before he tosses a purple band over our way. "Put that on her wrist. Don't worry, it's just a day pass. It'll stop her from glitching while she's here. I'm pretty sure Havoc is why you aren't glitching."

Miguel takes a tentative step forward. "Look, kid, I can tell how much you care about her just from the way you two fight together. But If canon-breakers like you are left to roam around, everything and everyone you know will disappear. It's you or it's you and them. I need to remove you from canon or else Havoc will make good on its name and everyone in your universe…" His eyes turn to Gwen. "Including her, will be gone forever."

The weight of it crushes me and I see it do the same to Gwen. My life or theirs. "What… would happen to me?"

I feel the rumble of thrusters as a giant spider shaped vehicle hovers near, its door opening into a ramp full of more Spider-people behind Miguel. "Follow me, I'd prefer not to fight anymore… 'cause, honestly, you hit like a train." Our eyes scan the glass roof, covered with Spider-people and more ready to flank us. "Not that you have much other choice, I'm afraid."

. . .

Beside the low groan of thrusters, it's a silent ride with Gwen holding tightly onto my arm. Sometimes, she looks up at me, trying to come up with ideas for how we could be together before her eyes fall back down. Miguel sits across from us, hunched over, staring at the floor with hand clasped. The aircraft lands on a building at the edge of Nueva York.

We follow him down into the facility, walking amongst a sparse number of crystal shards holding slumbering people inside.

"These are others we've captured before. Some are unique anomalies like you, while most are variants that repeatedly tried to harm the canon," Miguel explains before stopping at a door. "In here."

He shows me to a pod, large enough to fit a person inside. Overhead is an eight-legged machine, each limb surrounding the pod.

"This machine will wrap you in temporal stasis," Miguel says with a somber voice, before he looks at me, "You'll be frozen out of canon in this room, preserving Gwen and your universe. But their memories of you, most if not all… will disappear."

I feel the dread in Gwen's eyes. She shakes her head. "No! Don't do this! We can find another way!"

I give her a smile, one with as much reassurance as I can provide. Then I ask, "Will it hurt?"

Miguel shakes his head.

My voice trembles, still trying to comprehend it all. "Everyone… they'll forget me?"

He nods solemnly. "Their minds will fill in the memories you were in and adapt them to make sense to whoever you interacted with." He motions to Gwen with tears streaming down her cheeks while she grips me tight. "She won't remember anything that happened here because she was here with you. Might just think it was a dream. It's much more hit than miss with technology. I don't remember the others here but LYLA does… I'll ask her to keep looking for a way… to pull you into the canon."

Then he hands me a syringe full of liquid. "This'll make it easier," he says, "Help you sleep. Won't even be groggy when you wake up. When you're ready, hit the button on the console." Then he places a hand on my shoulder. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry this is the way it had to be, kid. If we find a way to let you stay in canon, we'll undo this. LYLA will wake you up and it'll feel like you just blinked your eyes from one moment into the next… No eres un Spider-Man pero… I wish that were different." Then he leaves and the doors close behind Miguel.

"Just us now," I say.

"So," Gwen says, tears streaming down her cheeks, "we just give up?"

"I'm not giving up, Gwen. We're just… going on pause and you won't even know it."

"Why… why like this?" she mutters.

I caress her cheeks, wiping her tears as her eyes meet mine. "I don't know. But the whole way here, I was thinking about our time together. How I came to fall deeper in love with you. All the memories we've gained, that I'll hold onto for us. Like building up the courage to ask you out at school…"

Gwen adds, sniffling, "Our first jam session..."

"Our first kiss," I say with a smile.

"You admitting your identity to me," Gwen says.

I grin wider. "And you telling me that it was 'cause of my butt."

We share a choked laugh.

I press my forehead against hers. "I love the way you avoid cold floors by doing your ballet walk. I love the way you hit your feelings with sticks on stage. There's… so much more but, most of all, I love you, Gwen Stacy. So, thank you for making a sappy, corny guy like me feel happy like this… Do me a favor, yeah? If even a small part of you remembers me, could you keep listening to our songs?"

Gwen nods, unable to speak.

I smile. "Now, please, give me another happy memory and then go make more of your own."

Gwen presses her lips against mine. I savor it because I don't know if or when I'll get to do this again. Then she falls limp in my arms. I catch her, holding her tight while dropping the syringe.

Hav, open a portal.

One thrums from the symbiote frame and I carry Gwen through. We're in her room, it's late at night. Gently, I cover her suit with baggy clothes I'd left here, before placing her in bed. I kiss her forehead and take one last look at the most beautiful person I know. Then I step through the portal so I can do what needs to be done.

I step into the pod, it's cold metal encircling around me.

Hav, you've been pretty quiet this whole time… sorry… about all this.

I feel Havoc sigh in my head. It is fine. This is my fault. For bonding with you. For choosing a host who isn't selfish.

I laugh. I am being selfish though. I'm choosing her.

Corny, you were weak when I found you. Overly compassionate with too much understanding of others… But, by far, you are the most impressive host I've bonded with.

Thank you, Hav.

I look over at the console. Aiming the webshooter that Gwen gifted me, I pull the trigger and a web tether smacks against the start button. The spider legs overhead begin to wrap the pod in crystalline webbing. I feel something neither cold nor hot spreading through me. I'm scared. I know I'll be frozen in time, disappear from the memory of everyone I knew or loved. I don't know if I'll ever be freed. But, if it's for them, this is best. As that sensation keeps me from moving, spreading past my neck, all I can think about is how lucky I was to be caught in your web, Gwen.