Chapter 11

Gwen POV

"Spider-Woman! Mind paying attention?" Prowler asked as he glared at Gwen, who only just now realized that she had been zoning out. However, she had rudely been broken out of replaying the fond memories of the previous night, where she'd spent a night of breathtaking moments with Miles.

Annoyed as she was to be interrupted in the middle of these thoughts, Gwen tartly replied, "Well, I'm sorry if I don't want to go over Silvermane's house's layout for the third time today! I barely got any sleep last night, and now I'm pretty sure you're trying to bring back my headache!"

Narrowing his white eyes at her, Prowler told her, "Glossing over the fact that you have been giving me a headache since we started working together, I'll have you know that I stayed up until six this morning getting these additional scans on the mansion, then woke up fifteen minutes later."

Somewhat abashed by this comment, Gwen quietly apologized, "Sorry."

"Do not presume that you are the only one here with a personal life, Spider-Woman," Prowler chided. "But we have a job to do, and we've already put off our attack by a whole day. If we don't make our move tonight, we'll be falling behind schedule. I don't know about you, but I want to take care of as many of our criminal targets as possible, as soon as possible."

"Fine, fine," Gwen accepted, waving for him to go on.

Looking back at the holographic map floating between them, Prowler reiterated, "So, the main thing you need to know is that the building has four different exits on the ground, one in each wing, as well as an additional fifty-four opening windows around the building. I want you to block them all off a couple minutes before we move in so that Manfredi can't try to run. After that, there's only four guards in the building, all of which we can handle easily, and Manfredi himself."

"And is Manfredi armed?" Gwen asked as she examined a holographic image that appeared featuring Silvio Manfredi waving cheerfully at a crowd of his public supporters.

Shaking his head as he deactivated the device in his hand with a touch, making the hologram vanish, Prowler responded, "No. The biggest threat he's got on him is a heavy belt buckle. He won't be a problem."

Gwen nodded in acceptance and leaned back to stretch with her back against a small brick wall. "Then let's catch us a Silvermane," she said with a grin.

A couple hours later, with a nod from Prowler, Gwen sprung into action and shot all around the building in a complete circuit, using her webs to secure all of the exterior doors and opening windows around the mansion, working from memory based on Prowler's hologram. She was finished in less than a minute, and by the time she landed next to Prowler right in front of the last remaining open doorway, she said proudly, "Proportionate speed of a spider!"

"What does that even mean?" Prowler asked as he walked up to the locked double-wide front door and knocked both doors off their hinges with a single punch.

Following right behind him and after shooting out a large web-net to cover the doorway once again to keep Silvermane and his people in and anyone else out, Gwen answered, "You know, I've never actually figured out the exact limits of it, but… pretty freakin' fast."

Prowler didn't respond to that, just continued to silently creep deeper into the house, occasionally casting a wary look into each room. After a few seconds of this going unsuccessfully, however, he growled and looked up at the ceiling before announcing, "All five targets are on the third floor."

Immediately cupping her hands around her mouth, Gwen yelled, "Well, we're here to rob this rich guy's place! I sure hope no one catches us!"

Prowler jumped a little as she began to yell right next to his ear, and after she was finished, he hissed at her, "What are you doing?!"

Not answering right away, Gwen asked, "When you get scared, do you ever accidentally do your little 'super-jump' thing and just fly right into the ceiling?"

"We're trying not to be noticed here! Why are you yelling?" Prowler asked angrily.

Gwen simply held up a finger for quiet and said, "Wait for it…"

A moment later, four grown men wearing suits and wielding submachine guns in their hands charged into the room ready for action before freezing in place as they saw the two vigilantes.

"Huh," Prowler said with interest. "Well, I guess that works." He then reached out and grabbed Spider-Woman's wrist before quickly spinning around and throwing her forcefully at one of the men, allowing her to kick off his chest, knocking him down, then bounce over to a second guard and punch him down to the floor as well. Meanwhile, Prowler dashed across the room and smacked a third guard across the room, where he crashed into a china cabinet and smashed the glass with his body before falling down unconscious.

The last guard managed to shakily raise his gun to aim at Prowler, but Prowler simply began to slowly stalk towards the man, showing no indication of fear whatsoever. The man pulled back the trigger on his gun in fright, causing the gun to quickly fire numerous bullets in quick succession, but Prowler just raised his hand and stopped all of the bullets against his palm before ripping the gun out of the man's hands and tearing it in two.

Now unarmed, the final guard tried to run away from them as fast as he could, but Gwen shot a web line onto each of his shoulders and pulled him backwards onto the ground before shooting a net of webbing to restrain him on the floor. Gwen and Prowler shared a nod of satisfaction, then turned back towards the building's stairway and began to make their way up to the third floor, where Silvio Manfredi was still seated in his study.

Walking into the room where Manfredi was waiting for them, Gwen laid eyes on the man and quickly determined that time had been hard on him since the days of that picture she'd seen of him. In the picture, he had seemed energetic and proud, and while his hair was still as silver-gray as it had been back then, all the fight seemed to have drained out of him over the years.

Gwen could hardly believe that a guy like this could be the head of one of New York's biggest crime families. His skin was wrinkled and his throat was sagging. There were dark shadows beneath his pale, unfocused eyes. She wasn't surprised to see that despite the many books lining the shelves in this room, he had no book on the table next to his chair, as he seemed so weak that she didn't know if he'd be able to turn the pages.

He was seated in a red velvet armchair a few feet away from a large fire, staring into the flames. He didn't react to their arrival as the doors opened, perhaps because he believed that it was just his guards returning, or perhaps because he was too helpless to do anything about it anyway.

Or perhaps it was neither of those things, as when they entered, Manfredi said in a surprisingly steady voice, "I've been expecting you two." Pausing in place when they heard this, Prowler and Gwen shared another glance with one another, then walked around the sides of Silvermane's armchair to stand in front of him, their backs towards the fire.

"And you didn't make us cookies?" Gwen asked before Prowler could say anything.

Sighing to himself, Prowler stared the old man down and said, "Silvio Manfredi, your days of running crime in this city are over."

His eyes twitching upwards to glare at them both, Manfredi said, "I knew you vigilantes would come for me sooner or later. You've become infamous. New York's despised web-slinging wall-crawler and perhaps the most capable thief in the world, two super-powered punks, former enemies, no less, working as a team to take down their fellow criminals. It's quite the story."

"See, even this guy sees the novelty, and yet Jameson's still running the same anti-Spider-Woman angle as always," Spider-Woman muttered to herself.

However, Manfredi wasn't done with his monologue, and ignoring his cane as he climbed shakily to his feet, the old man continued as if there had been no interruption, "They say you can't be bought, begged, bribed, or bullied. So instead… I guess I'll just have to try my hand at 'beating!'"

Then before either Gwen or Prowler could react, Manfredi reached down and pressed his index finger to the surface of his silver-outlined orange belt bucket, bringing it to their attention from where it had previously been mostly hidden beneath his large suit jacket. This small, seemingly innocent movement was enough to let Gwen realize that something bad was about to happen even before her Spider-Sense tingled in warning.

As soon as Manfredi touched his belt buckle, the buckle began to unfold plates of thick metal that strapped themselves piece by piece around Manfredi's body, first around his hips, then his legs and torso, then his arms and head, covering him head to toe in metal except for a small open place on his face, and extra plating on his shoulders and knees to protect his joints. Then, with a whir of hydraulics emitting from inside the suit, the previously frail-looking old man stood tall and scowled down at them menacingly.

At the same time, Prowler muttered, "Oh, so that's why they call him Silvermane," and Gwen commented confusedly, "Were you wearing all that metal on your waist? How does that even work?"

Evidently having hoped for a more intimidated reaction from both of them, Manfredi exclaimed in anger and launched forward towards them much faster than he should've been able to, spreading his arms out to his sides as he did so to knock them both off their feet and carry them through the wall behind them, clouds of dust getting kicked up in their wake.

On the other side of the wall, Gwen and Prowler both fell away from Silvermane and backed up to opposite sides of the now-dust covered sunroom. Looking around at all the mess, Gwen glared at Silvermane and said, "Hey! If we fight in here, you'll need to pay your cleaners extra! Wouldn't it be easier just to surrender?"

Sadly, it seemed that Manfredi didn't want to heed her warning, and he simply reacted to it by grabbing the nearest object, which happened to be an expensive-looking couch, and threw it at her with one hand. Of course, it proved to be no challenge for Gwen to avoid, jumping up to stick to one side of the couch and staying on it for half of a mid-air rotation before jumping off of it towards Silvermane to punch him in the chest.

To her surprise, however, her fist didn't seem to do any damage. Now, she almost always had to pull her punches by about 95% of her strength when fighting any normal human enemy, essentially anyone except for a few choice supervillains. In fact, she normally tried to focus mostly on her more controllable kicks and web-related attacks so as not to risk causing permanent damage to her enemies in a fight. Not to mention, she was currently holding back a little extra considering that her enemy was a rather aged regular guy in a suit, but this punch still should've been enough to create some sort of dent in most metals. Silvermane's suit must be stronger than she'd thought.

As though to demonstrate just how strong it really was, Silvermane responded to her attack by grinning and smacking her aside as though she were a pesky fly. She flew across the room just as the couch had done, but in a blur of movement, Prowler had crossed the room and grabbed her before she could crash into the wall. He glared at Silvermane, who was looking particularly smug and confident, then released Gwen and told her, "Stay here. I'll handle this guy."

Gwen processed his meaning a split second later as he held up one of his gauntlets to let it charge up, then launched himself towards Manfredi at full speed. However, as fast as Prowler was, Gwen just barely managed to grab ahold of his arm before he could leave and quickly redirected his charge so that he just barely missed Manfredi and instead blasted them both down through the floor.

Landing in the billiard room and destroying the snooker table, Gwen quickly released Prowler as he stood up and looked at her in confusion to ask, "What was that? Why'd you stop me?"

Holding up her hands in an attempt to keep him calm, Gwen responded, "Look, I know you want to take this guy down, and so do I. But remember, you said it yourself, he's just a normal old guy whose biggest threat is his heavy belt buckle."

"Well, when I said that, I wasn't expecting his belt buckle to be a weapon of mass destruction!" Prowler defended himself.

"Alright, but we still don't want to hurt this guy," Gwen persisted.

"Speak for yourself," Prowler said darkly.

Suddenly, as Gwen's Spider-Sense tingled again at the same time as hydraulics whirred above them, both herself and Prowler instinctively jumped back just in time to avoid getting crushed by Silvermane jumping down through the hole in the ceiling to land right in between them.

Dodging back to stand next to one another, Prowler quietly told her, "If you can restrain him, I think I can figure out how to disable his hydraulic servos. No hydraulics, no power, and his armor becomes a few hundred pounds of dead weight."

Grateful that he seemed to be accepting her plan of not hurting Manfredi too badly, Gwen nodded and whispered back, "Got it. I can buy you a few seconds, at least."

"That's all I need."

"You children don't honestly still hope to win this fight, do you?" Silvermane asked with a sneer. Then, not giving them a chance to answer, he grabbed a pair of stools from around a polished wooden table behind himself and threw one at each of them.

However, Gwen jumped up between them and shot a web line onto both stools before whipping them back at Silvermane himself, who held up his forearms to protect his unarmored face, and as the pair of seats shattered against the man, Gwen commented, "You know, you could have a very lucrative future in moving heavy furniture if you could just kick your nasty habit of throwing it everywhere."

Looking up at her and scowling, Silvermane abruptly jumped up next to her and wrapped his arms tightly around Gwen's waist before he landed back on the ground and began to squeeze her tightly against his chest, causing her to let out an involuntary breath as her ribs began to get overloaded with pain as she was slowly crushed. Fortunately for Gwen, it lasted only a moment as Prowler hastily rushed forward and grabbed Silvermane's wrists to pull his arms off of her, then kicked him away.

Whether through his sheer strength or just luck, Silvermane managed to stay on his feet as he was knocked away from them, simply skidding across the ground and leaving long cracks in the plank floor beneath them. He then grinned up at them once more, still as sure of himself as ever, and when Prowler followed up by flipping the wooden table at him, Silvermane simply bowed his head to let it shatter against his body before he told them, "You'll have to do better than that to bring me down."

"Spider-Woman, anytime now," Prowler prompted impatiently.

Nodding, Gwen ran towards Silvermane and called out, "Hey, Silvio! Isn't the whole 'dumb guy in a tough metal suit' usually Rhino's schtick?" to get his attention on her.

Thinking that she was getting ready to punch him, Silvermane positioned his feet to brace himself to meet the attack, but he was surprised when at the last second, she jumped up to stick her feet onto the ceiling instead, then stood vertically upside-down and began to hastily fire large globs of webbing to restrain Silvermane's arms and legs. Once she'd done all she could, she called to Prowler, "Hurry! That'll only hold him for a few more seconds!"

"Less than that," Silvermane responded as he yanked his arms upwards and ripped away Gwen's webbing with seemingly hardly any effort.

"Oh, come on!" Gwen complained. "They just don't make this stuff like they used to."

She then jumped down to distract him further, but this time Silvermane grabbed her by the arms to stop her in place, and as his enhanced strength started to squeeze inwards on her wrists, Gwen felt both of her web-shooters shatter beneath her gloves. Suddenly desperate, she kicked off of Silvermane's chest and forced him to release her, but the damage was done.

Fortunately, it hadn't been for nothing. "It was enough!" Prowler announced as he pressed a finger to the side of his mask, presumably to analyze his scan of Silvermane's armor through his lenses, though Gwen couldn't see whatever he was seeing. "Beneath the extra armor plating on his joints! Rip that plating off, and his hydraulics will shut down!"

Realizing their plan too late, Manfredi's eyes widened before he said, "Wait, no! You can't!"

"I guess we skipped introductions," Gwen told him as she leapt over to stick onto Manfredi's back. "Spider-Woman's the name, doing the impossible's my game." She then stuck her hands onto the flat surfaces of both of the plates covering his knees and roughly tugged upwards.

As soon as the servos within the plating were out in the open, his legs locked up and began to power down. Falling helplessly to his knees, Manfredi began to panic and exclaimed, "No! This cannot be how it ends! I will not let decades of my hard work end like this!"

Then, at the very moment that Gwen also tore off the plating on his shoulders to shut down his arms as well, Silvermane managed to press a pair of buttons, one on each of his palms. Instantly, every part of Silvermane's suit emitted some sort of energy blastwave that knocked Gwen off of him, causing her to crash bodily against the ceiling then bounce back to land hard a second time against the floor while pieces of wood and drywall fell down onto her.

However, whatever Manfredi had just activated had been far more powerful than simply to knock her away. It had extended much further and had not only blasted Prowler through the exterior wall of the mansion next to them, but had also blown away the entire section of the wall itself.

Still recovering from the blast, Gwen muttered to herself, "Oh, come on," as her Spider-Sense suddenly tingled once more in warning. It prompted her to look outside the building, and down on the ground level below them, just jogging innocently on the sidewalk next to the mansion, Gwen could see a young woman with wireless earbuds in her ears, completely unaware of the threat of falling debris quickly approaching her.

Knowing that her time was short to react and she was still injured, Gwen loudly called down to her, "Look out!" It seemed that Gwen had yelled loud enough to get the woman's attention, but when she looked up and saw what looked like half of a building about to fall on her, the woman just stopped in place and held up her hands as she let out a frightened scream. "No!" Gwen yelled as she forcefully shoved all of the pieces of the ceiling off of herself and quickly jumped over to the edge of the building, but she already knew that she would be too slow to save the woman on the ground.

Then, at the last second, Prowler dashed in from the side in a blur to pick the woman up before launching out of the way once again, taking her just outside of the danger zone before setting her down gently on the ground and starting to walk back towards the house. However, though he acted as though what he'd done was no big deal, Gwen heard the woman call after him before he could get very far.

"You- You're a hero!" the grateful civilian exclaimed with awe.

Hearing that, Prowler stopped in place and paused before looking back over his shoulder and firmly declared, "I'm no hero."

He then resumed his departure, looking up at Gwen as he did so, who held onto the remains of the exterior wall as she gave him a nod of appreciation. He returned the nod hesitantly before he began to walk casually back towards the house, not in any rush now that he knew that the danger had passed.

Or perhaps not, as a moment later, Gwen's Spider-Sense warned her of danger approaching from behind. Her eyes going wide, Gwen spun around and attempted to shoot webs to restrain her would-be attacker, but her web-shooters did nothing as she had momentarily forgotten that they were now broken. Gwen exclaimed in pained exasperation as she continued trying to use them to no avail, knowing that she was in trouble when she didn't have her most useful tools at her disposal.

Meanwhile, a large figure stepped out of the shadows behind her, steadily aiming a gun at her, and ordered, "Hands in the air!"

Gwen recognized the face of her dad directing his weapon at her, the cop that had the biggest grudge against Spider-Woman, and she tried to remain calm as she asked, "What-? How could you possibly be here already?"

"I predicted you'd come after Manfredi soon enough, and I've been waiting for you," George responded, never letting his hands holding his gun waver from aiming at her chest.

Knowing she was trapped, unable to escape from this situation without injuring her dad or perhaps actually getting herself killed when her dad had her in his sights at point-blank range, Gwen pleaded, "Captain, come on…"

Speaking into the radio clipped to his chest, Captain Stacy reported, "I have Spider-Woman at Manfredi Manor. Be advised, suspect is armed!"

Slightly outraged at the lie and even more frightened to imagine what he would use it for, Gwen argued, "With what? I'm- I'm out of webs!"

"Get down on the ground!" Captain Stacy roughly ordered.

"Which is it? Hands in the air, or get down on the ground?" Gwen asked confusedly.

"You're under arrest," the large man said, ignoring Gwen's question.

"I just took down a crime boss!" Gwen protested, gesturing at the helpless form of Silvermane stuck in the corner.

"For the murder of Peter Parker," Stacy then clarified.

"Captain, come on. I-"

"You have the right to remain silent," Captain Stacy began to recite loudly over her. "Anything you say can-"

"You don't understand!" Gwen finally begged, then flinched back as her dad fired a warning shot into the air.

He then aimed his gun back down at her, his eyes filled with loathing that showed how personal this had gotten for him, and said, "You don't understand."

Gwen was panting hard, overwhelmed by the intense emotion of the situation as her own dad had her trapped and seemed more than willing to kill her. Still, she decided that she couldn't let him shoot her without even knowing who he was really killing, so she finally made a decision that would change her life forever, though she hoped that it would also change Captain Stacy's views about her and keep her from getting shot or arrested. Slowly putting her hands up as she'd been ordered, Gwen was careful to make no threatening moves as she slowly reached down to grab the bottom of her mask, then started to pull it upwards.

However, just then, Prowler appeared, jumping over her dad from behind to land in a crouch in front of Gwen, then swiftly turned around and aimed one of his gauntlets at the police captain before launching one of his volleys of hard-light arrowheads at him. Before either Gwen or George could react, the arrowheads spread out and formed a net of glowing magenta energy that knocked Captain Stacy off of his feet and pinned him against the wall, his arms pinned to the sides and his gun dangling uselessly in his hand.

He struggled against the net for a few seconds, and upon determining that he could not hope to push it off of himself, he looked in horror at the immensely strong material holding him in place and exclaimed, "No. No! Not when I'm so close!"

Prowler glared at the man as he approached him, and to his credit, George met his glare with equal intensity as he told the younger man, "I swear I'll get you for this. If it's the last thing I do, both you and Spider-Woman will spend the rest of your lives in cells!"

Prowler remained silent, not taking the bait as he stepped forward and reached through the net to forcefully pull the gun from Gwen's dad's hand, who was unable to even try to prevent it when his entire arm was incapable of movement. Prowler then threw the gun aside carelessly and began to walk back towards Gwen. As he passed her, he softly asked, "Did he hurt you?"

Emotionally, maybe, Gwen admitted to herself in her mind, but on the outside, she shook her head as a negative response.

He suddenly reached up towards her face with one hand, and Gwen was surprised when she didn't even feel the slightest instinct to lurch away from him as she felt him grab onto the bottom of her mask with two fingers, the cool metal of his gauntlets making her shiver from the strangely not-unpleasant sensation. She wasn't sure what she was expecting him to do, but then he suddenly pulled her mask back down to cover the rest of her face, as she'd momentarily forgotten that she'd pulled it up above her chin before Prowler had arrived.

Once her mask fully concealed her face once again, Prowler looked Gwen in the eyes and told her, "Be careful who you show your face." And with that said, he walked over to the hole in the wall and launched himself over to the rooftop across the street, easily avoiding the gazes of the additional police officers arriving down on the ground.

Gwen walked over to the destroyed wall as well and looked out after Prowler, feeling a strong upsurge of affection for her hardworking partner. Just as she was about to go after him, she heard her dad's voice behind her say, "You know I'll get you one day. It's only a matter of time until I get you, and your dark friend as well. You can't protect each other forever, and I'm gonna-"

He was cut off as Gwen fired a small burst of webbing to cover her dad's mouth, silencing him, and responded in the usual deep voice she reserved for speaking to her dad as Spider-Woman, "Maybe you're right. But I know we'll keep trying. Which means that judging by the current progress of your manhunt, you'd better start trying harder. G'night, Captain." And ignoring her dad's muffled yells of fury, Gwen got a running start at the hole in the wall and jumped powerfully after Prowler.

When she arrived on the rooftop directly across the street from Manfredi's house, she found Prowler standing on the edge of the building with his arms crossed and looking back at the house. "The cops arriving so soon could've been a problem," he reported. "Of course, we got lucky. Manfredi's suit will be enough evidence for the cops to investigate him further, and they'll find enough evidence in his house to put him away, if only for a while. But next time, we'll need to be more careful. Maybe motion sensors positioned a few blocks around the target-"

"Prowler," Gwen cut him off as she approached him.

Turning to look at her, Prowler asked, "What?"

Gwen stopped next to Prowler and sat down, swinging her legs over the edge of the building to dangle below. She then patted the ground next to herself, prompting Prowler to sit with her. After a moment's hesitation, he sighed and did as she'd requested, sitting down next to her. As soon as he did, he let out a groan of relief and began to rub his feet through his shoes, and Gwen remembered what he'd said about how he had gotten barely any sleep the previous night, preparing for their mission.

Gwen leaned back on her hands and looked down at the line of cops trying to keep back a hastily-gathered crowd of reporters trying to approach Manfredi Manor and casually said, "I heard what you told that lady you saved."

Prowler was silent for a moment, keeping his eyes on his sore feet, then asked, "And?"

"You told her you weren't a hero," Gwen went on. "I just wanted you to know, you're wrong."

Prowler scoffed and said sarcastically, "Yeah, right. Listen, Bochinche, I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I've known real heroes, and I ain't one of 'em."

"Really?" Gwen asked disbelievingly. "Because you saved that woman without a second thought. Whether you wanted to be her hero or not, tonight you were the most important thing in her life just by being there for her."

There was a moment of silence, then Prowler said, "I know why Captain Stacy doesn't like you. The 'Peter Parker' incident. Do you know who that was?"

Beneath her mask, Gwen blinked in surprise and looked at Prowler curiously. She knew that her dad had made a big announcement about Peter's death in a largely successful attempt to get the entire city to consider her a dangerous menace, but somehow she found it completely unexpected for Prowler to mention her deceased friend's name. She'd worked so hard to separate her two different lives, after all, trying to be either Spider-Woman or Gwen Stacy, but never both, and the casual mention of Peter while she was wearing the mask felt like a collision of those two worlds.

Still, she reminded herself about the true reason that Prowler was bringing this up right now, confident that he still remained ignorant of her identity, and looked down sadly as she answered, "Yeah, I know who he was."

There was another short, uncomfortable silence following this statement. Then, when Prowler spoke again, there was a slight accusatory tone in his voice. "Did you really kill him?"

Gwen hesitated for a moment, then shed a tear beneath her mask as she admitted the truth she'd managed to avoid saying until this very moment. "Yes. I did."

Prowler didn't say anything to that at first, but merely looked across the street intently, though Gwen thought that she saw him start breathing faster and got the sense that he was barely managing to restrain himself from attacking her. Feeling a fresh wave of guilt for what she'd done at the moment, Gwen didn't think that she could blame him if he did.

Then, after a few seconds, Prowler sighed and said, "I still don't believe it. Someone like you doesn't just randomly kill a kid. You're too good for that. You must've had a reason. So tell me what happened."

Touched by his faith in her, Gwen looked at Prowler inquisitively, then took a deep breath and began to explain the story. "I was supposed to be taking a break that night. Just… trying to relax for once after a hard week of Spider-ing. So I went to this Prom dance-"

"At Visions Academy," Prowler suddenly cut her off. "That's the school where Peter Parker died. Are you saying you go there?"

"Well, I-" Gwen began to try to excuse herself, knowing that she'd let something big slip, but then just resignedly admitted, "Yeah. Yeah, I do."

Prowler tilted his head at her curiously and simply said, "Huh. Well, what happened next?"

Somewhat relieved by the way that he easily moved on from the information of her school, Gwen hurriedly resumed her story. "Anyway, during the party, this giant… thing came crashing in through the ceiling. It was like some sort of enormous lizard monster, bigger than the bleachers, wearing a ripped-up jacket over its upper body. Maybe when I saw that, I should've realized that something was wrong, but… Anyway, it tore through everything in its path, and it looked hungry. Everyone ran away, but the Lizard went after one kid, so I quickly put on my suit and started to fight the Lizard so everyone could get away. It tried to eat me, and I kicked it across the room, but it knocked one of the rafters out of the ceiling, and when the Lizard came towards me again, half the ceiling fell and-"

At that point, Gwen had to take a pause, unable to finish the sentence. While she was silent, Prowler quietly asked, "So the Lizard… Are you saying that Peter was-"

"He was the Lizard, yeah," Gwen admitted. "I had no idea it was him or… or anyone. But either way, I wasn't trying to kill the Lizard. I didn't see what I'd done until it was too late. I saw the Lizard turning back into a human, and I tried to dig him out to save him if I could, but he was too badly injured. He died in my arms, and I was helpless to do anything for him. Captain Stacy found me holding him and assumed that I had murdered his daughter's best friend. And you know the worst part? I don't think I'd care so much about what he thought if he wasn't right," she finished bitterly.

"He's not," Prowler suddenly spat out. Gwen looked at him in confusion, but Prowler went on to say, "What happened to Peter Parker, it wasn't your fault. You tried to save him, and his death was an accident. You were just doing your job, being a hero, protecting people. You didn't mean for anyone to get hurt, not even your enemy. And if Peter Parker was anything like I've heard, I bet he would've been proud of you for stopping him. In a fight, someone's always going to get hurt, sometimes an innocent. But that's why we do this, right? We protect everyone we can, simply because we can. Maybe we will fail to save someone, but we never stop trying, and this city's better today because of people like you."

After Prowler had finished saying his piece, Gwen thought that she felt some invisible burden being lifted from her shoulders as she processed his words. Somehow, in a matter of seconds Prowler had managed to help to ease her mind from an internal struggle she'd been dealing with for over a year now. What he'd said about Peter, assuring her that he would've held no ill will towards her for hurting him and that she had handled her grief admirably by becoming an even better hero, was doing more to help her emotional state than she'd ever managed to do for herself.

For whatever reason, she now found some of the greatest comfort and sincerity she'd ever known coming from the Prowler. It was almost laughable to face the fact, but one of her former worst enemies had quickly evolved into one of the people she trusted most in this world, second only to Miles.

Gwen smiled beneath her mask and playfully punched Prowler on the arm as she responded, "I think you mean people like us, partner. If I can be considered a hero, then you certainly are as well."

Hearing that, Prowler looked away and his glowing eyes fell sadly, looking as though he wanted to believe her but couldn't quite manage it, and responded, "Gracias, pero no gracias. I don't work like you do. You're the funny one, I'm the scary one. You see what I want you to see, but there's a darker side of me that doesn't belong to a good guy. If you really knew me, you wouldn't think I was a hero, so please don't try to convince me that I am one."

Distressed by her friend's inability to believe in his own goodness in the same way that she did, Gwen stared at Prowler for a moment, then took a deep, slow breath and resolutely made a decision. Raising a hand towards her neck, Gwen felt around with her fingers for a second and parted the folds of her suit's fabric where her bodysuit met her mask, then grabbed the bottom of her mask firmly.

Looking over when he noticed her movement, Prowler looked at the position of her hand and quickly realized what she was doing, starting to say, "Hey, wait, Spider-Woman-!" But he didn't have time to get any further than that before Gwen pulled her mask upwards, pushing back her hood to reveal her face and let her shoulder-length blond hair fall free.

Still holding her mask in her hand as she turned to look at Prowler face-to-face once more, Gwen tried to contain her nerves as she said, "Then you can get to know the real me first. I trust you. My name is Gwen Stacy, which… you may notice kind of makes my relationship with Captain Stacy even more complicated."

She had tried to play off the tension of the moment with a light-hearted joke, but maybe Prowler had just gotten really good at ignoring her attempts at humor, because for all the reaction he showed, he might've not even heard her at all.

Staring into her face until Gwen started to feel slightly uncomfortable, Prowler repeated, "Gwen Stacy." That was all he said, which seemed a little weird to Gwen, but then again, she'd never done this before, revealing her identity to someone. Maybe this should've been an expected reaction, for all she knew.

"Uh, yeah!" Gwen responded with a brave attempt at a smile, but when Prowler still just continued to stare at her, his white eyes almost comically wide, she continued uncertainly, "Is there… something wrong with that?"

Prowler remained silent for another few seconds, then abruptly tore his eyes away from her with a visible effort and said, "I think I need to go."

Shocked by this sudden claim, Gwen asked, "What? Why?"

Climbing to his feet, Prowler began to back away from her and said, "You know, it's probably no big deal, but I've had a long night… Well, long couple of nights." He suddenly stretched widely and let out a long yawn, still backing away as he said, "Oh, yep, you see that? I should probably go lay down now. But you know what? You did a great job tonight, and I will probably- No, definitely! Definitely call you soon about the next mission, alright? So… see you!"

And with that, not giving her a chance to speak or ask any further questions, Prowler turned and leapt away, disappearing within seconds in a blur of magenta light. Gwen watched him go, then sighed and pulled her mask back on before standing up and starting to run away from the area, knowing that she needed to get home quick if she wanted to fix her web-shooters before her dad got back. As she ran away as fast as she could, she was internally thinking to herself about how now that she had shared her secret identity with Prowler, hopefully it wouldn't be too long until he did the same for her.

Sadly, between her distracted thoughts and her rush to get home, Gwen didn't notice one of the shadowy gargoyles perched around the exterior of Silvermane's mansion raise its head to watch her leave.

Miles POV

When he arrived stealthily back at his home, Miles snuck into the apartment through his bedroom window and quickly but quietly pushed his slightly ajar door closed and locked it. His mom should still be at work, as she was still required to work late at the hospital as the staff there continued to struggle to accommodate a massively boosted number of patients following Rhino's rampage, but he still didn't want to take any chances.

Once Miles was sure that his bedroom was secure, he walked over to his wide, wooden desk and leaned against it, his clawed hands gripping the edge as he held himself up with his arms and released a deep breath. Then, he abruptly lunged towards one side of the desk and swept his arm across the entire tabletop, knocking everything off of it and onto the floor in a fit of unbridled rage. Textbooks, sketchbooks, markers, worksheets, action figures, everything on the desk received the same treatment, getting knocked down carelessly and left in a big pile on the floor.

Deciding that this wasn't enough to vent his anger, Miles grabbed the lamp from his nightstand and turned to throw it roughly across the room, where it hit the wall and caused the bulb to shatter.

Still unrelieved, Miles nevertheless tried to reel in his emotions using his uncle's teachings of self-control, placing his hands back on his desk and bowing his head as he took in a deep breath, but quickly lost his concentration and let out a yell of denial as his hands involuntarily clenched, and he heard the wooden lip of the tabletop splinter beneath his hands.

Finally, that was enough to snap Miles back to his senses, knowing that the damage he was doing to his room would only get harder to explain to his mom if he continued, and Miles backed up and sat down heavily on the edge of his bed, placing his head inside the palms of his hands.

It just couldn't be possible. There was no way that Gwen could be Spider-Woman… right? But the more Miles thought it over, the more possible it seemed. He remembered all the times that she had already been otherwise occupied when he had made an excuse to go out and be the Prowler. Like a fool, he had always believed every word she told him, even as he repeatedly lied to her day after day. Naturally Gwen could've been doing the same the whole time.

He remembered when Gwen had gone towards the roof when Rhino had attacked. Miles had simply ignored it at the time, deeming it a harmless mistake she had made and putting it out of his mind so that he could go fight Rhino himself. He had been surprised to find Spider-Woman already fighting the villain when he arrived, but again, Miles hadn't questioned it. He had simply remembered his mission, to gain Spider-Woman's trust, and had taken the opportunity without wondering about any of the suspicious circumstances.

Of course, he had later resolved to find out how Rhino had escaped in an effort to prevent it from happening again, but somehow he had never wondered about where Gwen had truly wound up after she left his apartment. He knew that she had not reached her father during that event, after all. Or rather, only now did he see that she had. Thinking back on it now, he realized that even their voices were practically the same, the only difference being the slight muffling that Spider-Woman's mask added to her words. How could he have been so stupid?

Suddenly, a soft beep in Miles' earpiece inside his mask told him that he was receiving a call. Expecting that it was Spider-Woman… Gwen calling him wanting to know why he had disappeared like that, Miles narrowed his eyes and pressed a finger to the side of his mask to answer the call as he said, "I told you that I'll stay in touch."

"Actually, that's what we told you, Mr. Morales," responded a voice from the other end. However, the voice was not Spider-Woman's, but Mr. Nelson's.

Surprised, Miles' tone became much less forceful as he said, "Mr. Nelson? I… didn't realize that this was you calling."

"Your confusion is understandable, Mr. Morales, but perhaps in the future you should be more careful about who you speak to and how," Mr. Nelson reprimanded him, then added, "But that's not why I'm calling. The boss wants to speak to you. Immediately."

Looking around uncomfortably, Miles said, "Er… I'm a bit busy with work at the moment, this isn't really a great time-"

"If the boss wants to speak to you, he clearly feels that what he has to say is more urgent than whatever else you're doing at the moment," Mr. Nelson cut him off, then repeated, "He wishes to speak to you immediately."

Sighing in defeat, Miles said, "Alright, fine. Put him on."

However, Mr. Nelson denied this request, saying, "No. If he wanted to speak to you on the phone, he would've called himself. He wants to see you in person. The usual meeting place in half an hour."

And with that simple message, Mr. Nelson hung up, leaving Miles with no opportunity to say anything else now that he had all the information he needed. Then again, Miles doubted that he would've gotten more information on why Mr. Murdock suddenly wanted to talk to him by continuing his conversation with Mr. Nelson.

If he wanted to see what Matt wanted, the only choice was to go to the indicated location and find out, and if he only had half an hour to reach Matt's office across the city, Miles decided that he had better get going as soon as possible. And so, putting aside his thoughts about Gwen's dual lives for now, Miles got up and quickly climbed back out the window, leaving his room in a shambles for him to clean up after he got back.

Line Break

The journey to Fisk Tower had given Miles plenty of time to think about his situation, and he now thought that he knew what was really bothering him.

Gwen's secret double-life as a spider-themed superpowered vigilante he could accept. After all, he'd be a bit of a hypocrite to judge her for it, or even for all the lies she'd told him. Of course, he now had more questions than ever and was still plenty mad at himself for letting her fool him for so long, but he'd now been forced to face the fact that it made sense. Gwen possessed a powerful combination of a brilliant mind and a uniquely determined and ethnic spirit that was full of integrity, and she was too benevolent to have kept her secret from him with the intention of excluding him from such an important part of her life.

No, he couldn't bring himself to continue being angry with her. But this situation certainly complicated things for him.

Miles stepped into Wilson Fisk's office and casually walked right past the big man's desk. Fisk didn't say a word to Miles as the younger man passed, but it was still clear that he had noticed him despite Miles' silent footsteps, as Fisk discreetly pressed the button to retract the glass wall behind himself into the ceiling, allowing Miles to go right through and walk right into Mr. Murdock's office.

The Kingpin was sitting at the same table where Miles had been given his first job interview, blindly facing the door and clearly waiting for Miles to enter the room, naturally unable to see that Miles had already arrived. Taking pity on the man, Miles stopped in front of the table and said, "You called, Mr. Murdock?"

Matt looked up in surprise at the sound of his voice, but quickly recovered and smiled as he said, "Welcome back, Miles. Please, take a seat."

Miles sat down in the seat right across from Matt and retracted his mask. The soft hissing of the metal plates must've clued Matt in on the fact that Miles had taken his seat, as he then proceeded to begin their discussion. "So, Miles, how was last night? Productive, I hope?"

Freezing in place as his thoughts immediately went to the previous night, particularly his dance with Gwen on top of his apartment at the end of the night, Miles asked, "Excuse me?"

"You told Foggy that you needed a night off to work on something, and the mission needed to be delayed," Matt explained patiently. "He said that you made it sound urgent."

Relieved that this was about something easily explained away, Miles responded, "Oh, yeah. Yes, sir. I, uh, wanted to scout out Silvio Manfredi's house a little extra before we went in."

"Of course," Matt said with a smile. "Well, that was very sensible of you, Miles. I just wanted to make sure that everything was alright. Now that I know you're okay, you'd better get home. I'm sure you could use some sleep. Although… While you're here, could I ask you one more question?"

"Of course, sir," Miles immediately responded, relieved that his lie had been found believable.

"Has Spider-Woman revealed her identity to you yet?" Matt asked.

At that, Miles blanched with worry and indecision, a small part of his brain that was still working momentarily thinking how glad he was at this moment that Matt couldn't see him, because in this moment, all of Miles' training on maintaining a neutral expression was completely lost to him as he had a silent mental battle with himself.

It lasted barely a second, as there wasn't really much of a choice to be made in the end, though perhaps the decision he made shouldn't have been the one that was easier to lean towards. He'd been hired by the Kingpin to prioritize one job above all others, to discover Spider-Woman's identity. Well, now he'd done that, and if it had been anyone else underneath her mask, Miles probably still would've been on board with the second part of his mission, to report Spider-Woman's identity to his employer. After all, he'd been assured by his uncle that Mr. Murdock could be trusted.

But now… it was more personal than Miles ever could've dreamed, and so though he wasn't quite sure why he said it, Miles looked Matt directly in the eyes and answered, "No. Nothing yet."

There was a short pause, during which Matt continued to stare into Miles' eyes from behind his circular glasses and their dark red lenses. Then, Matt leaned back in his chair and looked towards the ceiling as he said, "Well, I must say that it is… rather disappointing to hear that. Have a nice night, Miles."

Miles sat there for another moment, internally unable to decide if he had just achieved more of a success or failure, but the dismissal had been clear, and so Miles quickly stood up from his seat and walked out of the room rather awkwardly.

As the door swung shut behind him, however, it was caught before it could close and Foggy poked his head into the room to look intently at his boss and questioned, "Matt?"

Matt didn't say anything to him, but he did look directly towards the doorway and gave a quick nod to his friend. Nodding back in understanding, Foggy quickly withdrew from the room and shut the door snugly, then pulled his phone out of his pocket as he walked away, putting it up by his ear to make a call.