A/N: Okay, so I love the Spider-Verse movies and saw a few stories with similar premises to this, loved the idea, and decided to try my hand at it. If you don't like the way I do it but are interested in the idea, I would definitely recommend some of those other stories. And just to make it clear, most of this story will be in third person from either Miles or Gwen's perspective, unless stated otherwise. Anyway, as usual, I own nothing except any original content. All rights to existing characters and whatnot belongs to Sony/Marvel, whatever that whole deal is about. If you really want to know the details, Google them. Now, on with the story!
Chapter 1
Gwen POV - First Person
My name is Gwen Stacy. I was bitten by a radioactive spider, and for the last year, I've been the one and only Spider-Woman. And trust me, "one and only" isn't as fun as it sounds. In this life of work, of course I was gonna end up a solo act.
I was in a band for a while, but I quit so I could focus on being a superhero. I have my dad, Captain George Stacy of the PDNY, but just like everyone else, he can't know my secret. Worse, he actively hunts me for my illegal vigilantism.
I used to have one friend, Peter Parker. He wasn't exactly what you'd call "popular" at our school, so long before I got powers, I was standing up for him. Apparently, I didn't do as great at that as I thought. I didn't even know him as well as I thought. Didn't understand his true pain. When a giant lizard attacked my school's prom dance and tried to kill Peter's biggest bully, Ned Leeds, Spider-Woman came to the rescue.
I… I didn't know it was him. I didn't even try to kill the lizard monster. I would never hurt Peter. But I did.
My dad found Spider-Woman holding Peter's body and began to hunt her, trying to avenge the murder of his daughter's closest friend. Didn't make things any easier for me. I never really made another friend after that. Neither Gwen nor Spider-Woman can have any friends. They'd only distract me.
But I guess there's nothing I can do about that, huh? My city still needs protecting, and daydreaming isn't going to change that. I stole one of my dad's police radios so I can know when I need to rush to the rescue, and he just received a call about a late-night break-in. I guess it's time for Spider-Woman to save the day again, even though I'm sure J. Jonah Jameson from the Daily Bugle will find a way to blame the break-in on me anyway.
Gwen POV
The Spider-Woman of Chelsea, New York, swung up into a high arc and did a slow backflip as she came down to land in a perched position on top of a rooftop overlooking a building owned by the Roxxon Corporation, the building that was supposedly being broken into right now.
Her first instinct had been to simply go in, find the criminals, and take them out, but in the last year, she'd learned better habits than that. She'd been lured into too many traps, set by ordinary criminals or the police or even supervillains hoping to take her out. Ordinary criminals or the police she could usually handle, but the trouble started when supervillains lured her somewhere simply to have a fight, especially because the villains usually didn't care about the damage or civilian casualties caused by their battle. Now, these supervillains were usually pretty rare, but she'd learned that she could never be too careful.
Watching from afar, she detected no evidence of any forced entry. There were no walls blown in, no doors knocked off their hinges, and no shattered windows, indicating that this was most likely not the work of any supervillain, who had a tendency to be rather dramatic.
Letting out a deep breath of relief, Gwen shot another web line from her wrist-mounted web-shooters (which she designed herself, to her pride), and swung down to the building below, landing on one of the ceiling windows and trying to find a way to open it. As she searched for a handle of some sort, she muttered to herself, "Come on, please. The cops are covering the doors and I really don't need any more bad publicity for breaking a window."
Suddenly, Gwen's inbuilt early warning system, which she called her Spider-Sense, tingled in her head, alerting her to something about to happen. However, she didn't even have time to look around for the source of the indicated threat before the glass beneath her was suddenly blasted outwards, the window getting destroyed as it was hit with immense force from inside the building, and then Gwen was knocked away with it, barely registering a purple and green blur blowing past her before she hit the ground, rolling and landing on her face.
Sighing with annoyance as she pulled herself back up to her hands and knees, Gwen told her brain, "You know, a little more warning would be nice, Spider-Sense."
Seeing quick movement out the corner of her eye, Gwen looked over to her side and saw the source of the blast, a grown man in a purple costume and mask running away from the area without giving her a second thought, moving faster than she thought any non-powered human should be able to, metal boots and clawed gauntlets glinting on his feet and hands as he went. The green she'd seen earlier came from a large, strange green symbol on the man's chest, almost like some sort of animal with sharp fangs.
Gwen's eyes widened at the sheer speed and efficiency of this unfamiliar criminal (clearly a supervillain), the eye lenses of her mask widening to reflect her true facial expression, and she immediately shot a web to grab onto the man's back. As soon as the web hit him, the man spun around and used his claws to quickly cut through the web line like it was nothing, even though the web was actually stronger than steel.
Having lost her hold on the man himself, Gwen instead spun her body around and back into a standing position, her younger years of ballet coming into use, then shot a web line from either wrist onto either side of the man in purple, stepping backwards to pull the lines tight, then launched herself at him like the projectile from a slingshot. His head turned to face her just before she arrived, and the eyes of his mask widened in surprise a moment before she crashed into him, tackling him to the ground and immediately using webs to pin his hands to his chest.
As she webbed the criminal up, Gwen commented, "You know, purple's a really bold fashion statement. Isn't the idea of being a criminal to not get spotted?"
As the man in purple began to struggle against her webbing, Gwen dropped to the ground and spun around with one of her legs out to trip the man onto the ground, making him grunt as he landed, then stood over him and gloated, "You can keep fighting that webbing all night. It's kind of a miracle material, and I should know, I made it myself. Strong, light, compact, flexible. You're never going to-" She abruptly broke off as she noticed several purple rods inside the man's gauntlets begin to glow, and she cursed, "Oh, me and my big mouth."
Immediately after she'd said that, the man thrust his arms out to his sides with a yell, and Gwen cautiously backed away from this guy who was proving to be much stronger than she'd ever imagined he could be. Not many of her enemies could break her webbing with sheer force. It seemed like he was getting his abilities from his gadgets rather than actual powers like she possessed, but that only meant that those gauntlets were able to create hundreds of pounds of force. Admittedly, it was some of the most impressive technology she'd ever seen, but she still wasn't too keen on the idea of letting it hit her.
Panting heavily, the man in purple got back to his feet, towering over Gwen as he was an adult and she was just a teenager, and said in a deep, modulated voice, "So, you're the Spider-Woman I've been seeing on the news?"
Tilting her head, Gwen cautiously responded, "Uh, that depends. If I say yes, are you going to turn yourself in or try to kill me?"
The man in purple didn't answer her question vocally, instead just lunged towards her with his gauntlets humming with energy and tried to hit her in the face. Gwen dodged the first punch, then another, but then she was quickly kneed in the gut before he grabbed one of her arms with one hand and turned to throw her bodily over his head and off the edge of the building.
Gwen was surprised at how this purple guy was actually managing to keep up with her, especially if he didn't have any real powers. Between her Spider-Sense and her superpowered strength and agility, almost no normal criminal could ever land a hit on her, but this guy was faster than her Spider-Sense or reflexes. It was too dangerous to get in close. She was going to have to improvise.
Shooting a web line onto the roof above to stop her descent, Gwen swung herself back upwards towards the roof just in time to see the purple guy jumping off of it, the bottoms of his boots glowing with a bright purple light. Just before she got to the roof, Gwen shot a second web to catch the falling criminal and pulled him back up with her, saying, "Did you jump off the building to save me? Aw, you missed me!"
As she pulled him along, Gwen noticed a small package with a Roxxon logo hanging on the back of his belt and shot a web to pull it off of him before webbing it securely to the side of the building near the roof's edge. Gwen landed on her feet on top of the Roxxon building and whipped her other web line around in front of her in an attempt to slam the purple guy onto the ground, trusting his technology to help him survive the impact.
However, the purple guy stopped her plan by spinning around in midair to use his claws to once again cut her web line off of himself. He then landed on his feet in a defensive position, facing her with his claws extended threateningly and the insides of his gauntlets glowing brightly. "Don't be stupid, kid," he told her. "Just let me go. You don't want this fight."
Gwen stood in her own defensive stance, but then looked behind the man in purple to see a tall, metal relay tower right next to him. These towers were held up by strong, metal bolts to keep them from tipping over in the wind or even if they were accidentally bumped by heavy machinery. If a stronger force were applied to them, however…
Gwen looked back down at the purple guy and said, "You're right. I don't."
The criminal slightly lowered his fists, obviously surprised by what seemed to be her acceptance of defeat, and Gwen used his moment of confusion against him. Shooting several web lines up at the sides of the relay tower in quick succession, Gwen then combined all of the lines into one and placed the lines over her shoulder before she turned and pulled with all of her might.
No normal human could've budged the tower, but Gwen had the proportionate strength of a spider, which she'd discovered made her capable of lifting several tons, and she still hadn't reached her limits. With the strong web lines as her tools to gain leverage, Gwen was quickly able to move the tower enough to make it fall down, heading straight towards the supercriminal in front of Gwen.
The purple guy turned and looked towards the falling relay tower just seconds before it would land on him, and his eyes went wide before he turned back towards Gwen and ran towards her at full speed. However, even with his technologically-advanced speed capabilities, he wasn't able to get entirely out of the way of the tower before it crashed down. He tried to make one last desperate leap out of the way, but the tower shifted towards him as he dodged over a rooftop vent unit, crashing down onto the vent and pinning his right arm underneath the massively heavy beam, making him let out a distorted scream of agony as his arm was bent backwards over the edge of the vent unit and his other arm flailed helplessly as he tried in vain to lift the tower off of himself.
Her eyes wide, Gwen swiftly ran over to where the man lay and put her hands underneath the edge of the tower to help him lift it. She had only tried to knock him down and maybe scare him a bit! She certainly hadn't intended to inflict such a grievous injury on him, even if he was a criminal. Not to mention, this fate was chillingly similar to what had happened to her friend Peter, getting crushed underneath a massive metal structure.
She groaned with effort as she pulled up on the tower, her incredible strength just managing to lift the tower a few inches off of the purple man's destroyed arm, and he quickly shifted out from underneath the tower before she had to release it, and then they both fell onto the ground next to each other, breathing hard from the strenuous experience.
They laid there for a few seconds, and then the purple man abruptly held up his non-damaged left arm and clenched his fist in his gauntlet, which caused it to immediately emit a thick cloud of smoke that obscured his entire body in an instant. Gwen's eyes went wide once more before she flipped over and tried to grab the criminal before he could escape, but her hands grasped only at empty air, and she flipped up to her feet, out of the smoke, and looked all around for any sign of the purple man. Unfortunately, she saw nothing.
Sighing to herself, Gwen spoke to the empty night air and said, "Alright, I may have deserved that." Still, she thought to herself, there was one small victory tonight.
Walking over to the edge of the roof, Gwen reached down and pulled the stolen Roxxon package off of the wall below, then held it up to look at it. Part of her wanted to open it, just to see what that purple guy had been trying to steal, but then she thought about what her dad would say. He'd always taught her to follow the law, to do things by the book. Well, maybe she didn't fight crime the same way he did, but she still had to follow certain rules, and it wasn't her business to know what was being stolen.
Keeping the package in her hand, Gwen jumped off of the edge of the building and towards the PDNY squad cars parked at the front door. Knowing that they wouldn't take kindly to seeing Spider-Woman here, Gwen simply threw the package onto the hood of what she recognized as her dad's car, then shot a web to stick it in place to ensure that no one else stole it, then swung away.
As always, there was one final part to the mission: acting like she had been home the whole time for when her dad got back. Oh, and she should probably get finished packing for tomorrow, when the new year would start at her school, Brooklyn Visions Academy. It would be difficult to get back into the habit of balancing her Spider-ing and her schoolwork, but she'd done it before.
Besides, despite losing the bad guy, tonight had been a big win. Spider-Woman had stopped the robbery and saved the day with minimal property damage (at least for fighting a supervillain). Now she just had to hope that school went as well as tonight had, especially now that her one friend would no longer be there. Without Peter, school would only remind her of how lonely she felt, but she pushed that thought out of her mind. She'd already decided that the rest of tonight would be dedicated to celebrating saving the day.
Miles POV - First Person
My name is Miles Morales. I was born here in Brooklyn, New York, to Jefferson Davis, a PDNY officer, and Rio Morales, a nurse at our local hospital.
I used to be a happy, carefree kid. My parents made my life sheltered, oblivious to the horrors of the world. Every day for over fourteen years, I would watch my dad strap a gun to his hip before leaving our apartment, and I never questioned why. I always expected him to come home at the end of his day. Sometimes I would wait longer than others, but I never doubted.
Then, eight months ago, I sat in my room late at night, just drawing in my sketchbook or something stupid like that, when I suddenly realized that my dad still hadn't come home. It felt weird, but I just waited. He was late sometimes. It was fine.
I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. I eventually fell asleep, but I was woken up early in the morning, way before the sun was up. I remember two officers on my front porch, neither of them my dad, their hats in their hands with sad eyes looking at the ground. I remember my mother's tears as they gave us the news, that my dad wasn't going to come home anymore. And I remember… feeling numb. I couldn't process what I was hearing. I didn't cry that night. I couldn't feel anything. It was later that morning when I cried.
My mom called my Uncle Aaron, my dad's estranged brother, to help me get through it. She was too busy grieving herself. My uncle told me that he was sorry, that he missed him too, that he was gonna take care of everything. And he did. He does. I took a break from school for the rest of the year, and my mom took a break from work for a week. She couldn't grieve longer than that. We had bills to pay, and my dad couldn't help her anymore. She couldn't get enough hours at the hospital for us to live on, so my Uncle Aaron stepped in and helped us make the payments. He always had the money.
I eventually asked him how he got paid so much even though he said he couldn't hold a job. And he showed me. He showed me what he really did. He's a thief called the Prowler, and he uses some high-tech stuff to do some jobs for people. Sometimes he just steals to make ends meet. Sometimes he's hired to hurt someone. And he's the coolest guy I know.
He's like Robin Hood, kinda. He steals from bad people, he sometimes hurts people to do it, but he's a good guy. Not a hero, but a good guy. My dad's death taught me that heroes get killed. My dad's death taught me that the world is a tough place. And my uncle taught me that you've gotta be tougher.
Since I wasn't in school, my uncle started letting me join him on his jobs sometimes. We never told my mom what we were really doing. But I learned a whole lot of cool stuff, and we make quite the team. And who knows? Maybe one day, I'll be able to join him all the time, and together, we'll save more than just our family. We'll save everyone.
Miles POV
Miles' eyes snapped open at the distant sound of his apartment's front door being opened quietly. His uncle had taught him to be a light sleeper. They'll try to get you when you're down, he'd said. It had taken them months of practice, but Miles had eventually learned how to control his subconscious mind. He could wake up from even the deepest sleep in an instant.
His brain immediately began to process little details from the apartment's entrance. The way that the door slid back into the frame without even clicking, the low number of times he heard the floorboards creak… Whoever had just entered the apartment was deliberately trying to avoid making noise, and Miles knew that his mom was already in the kitchen, putting away groceries as she clearly hadn't heard the new arrival.
Miles stealthily crept out of bed and towards his bedroom door, his defensive instincts kicking in as he imagined someone trying to attack his mom. He placed his fingers on his room's door knob and opened the door just a crack, but then he stopped as he recognized the male voice that began to speak to his mother.
"Hey, Rio, I, uh- got a confession to make."
Uncle Aaron! Miles exclaimed in his mind.
He then heard his mom gasp and say, "¿Aaron, qué pasó? Your arm!"
Hearing that his uncle may be in pain was all Miles needed, and he quickly opened his bedroom door to walk out and join them, asking, "What's wrong?" He then froze as he looked at his uncle, standing next to his mom in the kitchen. Uncle Aaron had a large, white cast running down his right arm, holding it in position across his chest.
His mother was trying to examine it, but she looked up when Miles entered and chastised, "Miles, you should be asleep! You start at school again tomorrow!"
Stepping up to Uncle Aaron's opposite side, Miles asked, "Are you seriously worried about school right now? Uncle Aaron, what happened?"
Uncle Aaron winced as Rio lightly gripped his injured arm and pulled it away from her to say, "I'm fine, I'm fine. Just an accident with some heavy machinery at work. It could've been a lot worse."
As he mentioned the "heavy machinery at work", Aaron gave Miles a meaningful look that Rio didn't quite catch, and Miles nodded in understanding. Whatever had happened, it had happened while Uncle Aaron was out being the Prowler.
Aaron then turned back to Rio and continued, "Since I'm kind of… beaten up right now, I need to take a break from work."
"You take all the time you need," Rio instantly told him.
Aaron nodded gratefully, then added, "But I'm telling you this because I'm not gonna be able to help you with your bills for a bit… At least, not working alone."
Rio's expression grew darker as her concern grew, and she looked up at the tall, slender Uncle Aaron to ask, "What do you mean?"
Looking over to Miles, Aaron explained, "Well, I have a few smaller jobs that I think Miles could easily take on for me, if you'll let him-"
Rio was immediately shaking her head, adamantly refusing, "No, Aaron. ¡Míralo! He's still just a boy! And with your injury, I don't think I want him working around all that heavy-"
"Mom!" Miles suddenly cut her off. He then gently continued, "I'll be fine. You know Uncle Aaron won't let me get hurt."
Rio still looked hesitant, but she looked at Aaron, and he gave her an encouraging nod before she sighed in defeat and told him, "If he gets injured-"
"It's not gonna happen," Aaron said confidently, then began to walk towards Miles' open bedroom and said, "I'm going to talk to Miles in private for a minute, if that's good with you."
Rio nodded her acceptance and responded, "Alright. I've got to finish putting these groceries away anyway. But Miles, I want you in bed as soon as you and Uncle Aaron are done talking, okay?"
"I'll make sure he's asleep before I go," Aaron reassured her as he escorted Miles into his bedroom, then added, "Good night, Rio," just before he closed the bedroom door.
Once they were closed inside the room together, Miles sat on the edge of his bed and quietly asked, "So what really happened?"
Sitting next to him, Aaron answered, "I had a little run-in with that vigilante on the news. Spider-Woman. I don't know if she just wanted the score or if she was trying to be some kind of hero, but she nearly dropped a tower on me trying to steal your mom's next couple paychecks from me. Only managed to pin my arm instead."
Miles' eyes went wide and he asked, "How'd you get away?"
Seeming confused himself, Aaron answered, "Actually, she helped me lift it off of my arm before I managed to smoke-bomb my way out of there."
"Why?" Miles asked, not understanding why someone would drop a tower on a guy just to lift it off of them.
Aaron shook his head, evidently clueless, and said, "Doesn't matter. What does matter is that I wasn't lying about this arm. When she dropped that tower on me, she took down the Prowler, at least for a few months, and you and your mom can't wait that long. Now, you need to do what I've been teaching you to do."
"Which is what?" Miles asked.
Aaron looked him in the eyes and answered, "To be me. To be the Prowler, better than I ever was."
Thinking he was joking, Miles began to laugh, but his laughs slowly got weaker and weaker as he noticed that his uncle remained stony-faced throughout it all. Then, realizing that his uncle was indeed serious, Miles asked, "Wait, you're serious, man? How am I supposed to be the Prowler, let alone better than you?"
Aaron placed his left hand on Miles' shoulder and insistently told him, "Because I've seen you out there, Miles. Out in the field. Sure, it took me a minute to get you to jump off a roof your first time, but ever since? You're faster than me. Smarter than me. More agile. More fearless. You can think on the fly in a way that I can't. You learned like crazy for eight months, and now? With the right tools, I think you could be better at this than I ever was. No Spider-Woman is gonna stop you like she did me. And you can do a lot more good than I ever did."
Looking down, Miles protested, "Uncle Aaron… I'm not like you. You're my hero, man."
Aaron looked both flattered and surprised at the compliment. A wide grin then formed on his face, and he chuckled as he said, "Well, what a coincidence, because you're my hero, Miles." Miles returned his uncle's look of surprise, but Aaron wrapped his free arm around Miles to pull him into a close hug and added, "And no, you're not like me. You're better. And by the time you're done, you're gonna be a whole lot of other people's hero too."
Miles chuckled along with his uncle for another few seconds, and then Uncle Aaron stood up from the bed to say, "Alright, come on, let's roll. Out the window. We gotta go back to my place and get your new suit worked out."
His laughter stopping abruptly at the reminder, Miles looked up at his uncle and protested, "But my mom said that I need to get to sleep. She's not gonna let me go out before the first day of school."
Uncle Aaron just pulled Miles' window open, then looked back over his shoulder to say, "She's not gonna know. And I said I would make sure you were asleep before I left, and I will… later tonight. Besides, Miles, the Prowler doesn't have a bedtime."
And with that said, Uncle Aaron pulled himself out the open window and slipped down into the darkness, leaving Miles alone to make his decision. Miles hesitated for a moment, then chuckled once more to himself at his uncle's antics before getting up to follow after him.
A/N: Welcome, my dear readers, to Earth-107 in my latest story, Trials of Nature. Now, this is just a teaser chapter for now, designed so I can discover the level of interest you all have in this idea, and also to ask you all a question. I don't plan on this story being too long, though I usually make my stories a bit longer than I originally intended, but I would like to know if any of you are interested in me including a romance element in this story (specifically between Miles and Gwen). As some of you may know, I recently completed my fanfic entitled "Seeking Justice", which was my first attempt at writing romance, and I have yet to receive any negative comments about how I wrote it. Anyway, I personally ship Miles and Gwen together, and either way, the plan is for Miles and Gwen to at least be friends, but I'll take a poll of popular opinion to decide if I will make this story another romance. Now, finally, I leave you with my thanks for taking the time to read my story as well as the hope that you all enjoyed this first chapter!