Trials of Nature

by StormySky1005

Gwen Stacy is Spider-Woman, the unappreciated hero of New York. Miles Morales is the Prowler, the high-tech criminal that keeps evading her. Neither knows the other's identity, but now they go to the same school.

16. Meant To Be

Chapter 16

Miles POV

"I know I said you should smile more, but this isn't what I meant," Gwen told Miles worriedly as she watched him work.

However, due to the nature of his current project, Miles couldn't keep the wide, anticipatory grin off his face as he typed on his holographic keyboard, inputting a series of complex commands, even though he knew that he must look quite deranged. He was too busy imagining the madness that his plan would surely cause, and his face reflected that madness perfectly at the moment.

Shortly after he and Gwen had left Times Square, Gwen had told him that she felt like something was off, and after Miles had taken special care to scan around them until he could relieve that feeling, they had discovered that they were being followed by one of Spider-Man's spider-bots, of which Gwen told him there were apparently quite a few.

Miles had captured and deactivated it before it could run away after it realized that it had been spotted, then brought it back over to Gwen to ask what she thought they should do with it. Possessing a greater hatred for the things, Gwen had suggested that they simply destroy it, but after Miles had opened its circuitry and used it to send out a ping to make sure that there were no more following them, Miles had recognized the potential in its connection to Spider-Man's immense, citywide spy network, and so he had vetoed Gwen's suggestion, telling her that he had something better in mind but not having explained the details just yet. That was why he now had the deactivated robot plugged into his gauntlet as it underwent some… cathartic changes.

Also, they were currently near the top of the Chrysler Building while they took a rare moment of relief. Not because they were worried about the robot giving away the location of their base or anything like that (Miles had removed the spider-bot's tracker almost immediately after they acquired it), but simply because they wanted to get some fresh air and Gwen had suggested this place.

Part of Miles wondered if it had anything to do with the time that he used one of his Constrictors to trap her up here for an hour, but Gwen didn't seem to have any malice behind this choice. In fact, she seemed incredibly comfortable up here, relaxing on the eagle head in front of where Miles sat while she looked back at him. Despite what she said, however, she appeared greatly content and amused to see Miles' enthusiasm with his work.

Looking up at Gwen for a moment with a smirk to acknowledge her comment, Miles' mind automatically snapped a picture of what he saw before him, the image of Spider-Woman, unmasked to reveal her face's beauty, smiling happily back at him from where she sat on the edge of the building with the city's majestic skyscape spread out behind her, and once again reminded himself that he would soon have to get himself a new sketchbook so he could draw this picture out with his last sketchbook now full.

Quickly snapping himself out of those thoughts for now so he could focus on his project, however, Miles looked back down at his newly written-out programming, carefully examining it for any errors, then nodded in satisfaction and hit the enter button to begin the upload, saying, "Well, that should do it."

Interested, Gwen quickly stood up and walked over before sitting down by Miles' side and looking at his work while she asked, "Ooh, what'd you do? Did you upload a bunch of cat videos into its memory? Did you add an auto-correct program to the coding?"

"Please, I wouldn't give him auto-correct. I'm trying to be a good guy now, remember?" Miles joked before Gwen could continue making guesses, then explained, "I actually did a lot more than either of those things. You see, while I was taking this thing apart, I realized a couple things, like that it had three-sixty degree vision, its own built-in taser, it can move fast and mostly unseen, stuff like that. And most importantly, this spider-bot and all of its little friends are all connected to the same network, so if I can access the network through one of them-"

"You can do something to affect all of them!" Gwen finished with amazement. She then looked at Miles and asked, "So they all have cat videos now?"

Chuckling, Miles said, "No. Maybe I'll add that later. No, what I did is I actually rewrote the entire code. I gave all of the spider-bots new orders. I can't make it too obvious, so they still follow Spider-Man's orders, but anytime they're just patrolling the city on their own now, they should do their best to incapacitate minor criminals, or at least report them to the police. And I switched around their programming regarding us, so they should pretty much just ignore us any time they're told to hunt us. Instead, a random bot will send out a fake alert every once in a while, just to keep Murdock's people guessing. And just in case Spider-Man eventually finds the problem… I may or may not have rewritten the code in Spanish, which he told me he doesn't speak, so if he wanted to reset their programming, he'd have to start again from scratch."

Her eyes wide, Gwen exclaimed, "Miles… this is amazing!"

Shrugging modestly but inwardly very proud of his accomplishment and even more so with Gwen's praise, Miles said, "Yeah, well, I realized that these things could help protect the city while we're… You know. Being hunted and whatnot. It would've been better if I could've tapped into their surveillance and audio so we could spy on Spider-Man, but it was complicated, well-protected programming, and I didn't want to-"

"Miles," Gwen cut him off sternly, then leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek before telling him, "This is great. You did an incredible job."

Miles smiled upon hearing Gwen's reassurance and deactivated his hologram, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer against his side and prompting Gwen to lay back and relax her head against his chest, one of her hands idly twirling one of his braids of hair around her finger. They stayed like that for a while, both just enjoying not being chased or having to work for once, winding down in the tranquility of the moment as the sun went down on their left, casting an orange glow over the tops of the skyscrapers in front of them.

After a while, Gwen asked, "Miles? What are we?"

Letting out a deep sigh, Miles answered, "Well, people have been asking that question for a long time. Are we just the product of stardust, drifting aimlessly in a wide open universe? Or are we-"

He broke off as Gwen suddenly gave his hair a sharp tug, sending a brief burst of pain through his head, and grumbled, "Stop it. You know what I mean."

Chuckling to himself, Miles thought over the true meaning of her question. They had now both revealed their feelings to each other, but they hadn't given it any official designation yet. Were they now an "item"? That seemed far too simple a term for what they had between them. And how did this work? Did they just say it and assume that their words would make it true? Miles had never done anything like this before, and was at a complete loss for what the procedure was. Relationships were much more complicated than machines, it seemed.

Speaking hesitantly, Miles responded, "I guess we're… boyfriend and girlfriend? Maybe?"

Her eyebrows furrowing, Gwen asked, "Boyfriend and girlfriend? Isn't that one of those 'normal people' things? How does that work with people like us? I mean, there's not exactly a precedent for superheroes dating."

Shrugging cluelessly, Miles smirked and said, "Well, there's a first time for everything, right?"

Gwen gave a light chuckle at that and raised her head off of him to remind him, "Only if we handle this situation with the Kingpin. And I'm getting excited to introduce my dad to my new boyfriend, so let's get to work."

Propping himself up so he was sitting straight, Miles nodded in agreement and said, "Right. The sooner Murdock's taken care of, the sooner we can get back to our lives. I'm already dreading the amount of extra homework I'm going to have to do."

"Maybe let's focus on the more pressing sides of our lives for now," Gwen prompted. "I know it's a tough choice, putting saving the world above homework, but this is part of the job."

Smiling at Gwen's joke but also trying to think up their first order of business, Miles finally said, "I think our first move needs to be preparing for another fight with Murdock's enforcers. If we're lucky, both Prowler and Spider-Man are currently being taken to the Raft, but I'm betting it won't hold them very long."

"Maybe they'll reveal Spider-Man's real identity on the news!" Gwen added enthusiastically.

Nodding, Miles opened his gauntlet's hologram once more and opened a news channel where he saw a report being given on the attack in Times Square.

Turning on the volume, he and Gwen huddled together to watch the video as the commentating voice of J. Jonah Jameson announced, "The destruction done to one of New York City's most beloved tourism magnets is severe, but restorers from the mayor's office have stated that they have hopes to have the debris cleared and Broadway once again open for business within two weeks. However, one crime committed tonight that cannot be fixed is the brutal (though not entirely unexpected) murder of Mac Gargan, AKA the Scorpion by the Spider-Woman!"

Appalled by what he was hearing, Miles exclaimed, "No!" at the same time as Gwen, both of them staring at the screen with wide, horrified eyes as an picture appeared of the limp form of Scorpion laying on a stretcher, his own tail embedded deep in his gut and held in place by webs that the medics attending his body had evidently been unable to remove.

As though speaking in response to Miles and Gwen's outburst, Jameson continued with a gleeful, triumphant tone, "Ooooh, yes! You heard me! New York's web-headed wallcrawler, the Spider-Woman, has finally committed her second murder in just over a year's time! At least it was a criminal this time, so I'm not complaining. In fact, I'm celebrating! If you look at this image, you can clearly see the proof of what Yours Truly has been telling you all for the last year! I told the truth from the beginning, people! 'Spider-Woman: Threat or Menace', still our best-selling newspaper after all this time, and available now at your nearest Daily Bugle store! And those of you who've been calling me with the outrageous claims that you think Spider-Woman is some kind of hero, trying to change after her murder of Peter Parker? Oh-ho-ho, I want to hear what you have to say about her now! And don't worry, I won't make you beg for forgiveness. But you can't deny that I deserve it!"

Turning to look at Gwen, Miles pointed out, "Spider-Man must've killed Gargan. And after he stabbed him, he shot webs onto him to implicate you. He must've managed to escape."

"And we just left Gargan there for the police," Gwen added, sounding angry at herself. "It's our fault he's dead."

Miles opened his mouth to contradict her claim, hoping to relieve her guilt, but then he was silenced when he noticed Gwen's dad appear on the holographic screen, making a statement on the events.

"What happened here was a tragedy, and I'm not denying that some of the blame belongs to our police department for our lack of preparedness for handling super-criminal events," Captain Stacy said, his hands on his hips, then took a deep breath and continued, "However, we can't afford to jump to conclusions. All cameras in the area were taken down during the whole thing, so we don't know the details, meaning that we can't just assume that this was the Spider-Woman's doing. No matter what the evidence suggests, the PDNY is going to stay open to multiple possibilities pending a formal and thorough investigation. For all we know, Spider-Woman could've been the hero here. She might've had no choice, or maybe she's being framed. But rest easy, New York. If nothing else, the death of Mac Gargan leaves this city a little bit safer."

Miles turned to Gwen to see her staring at her dad in shock. After a few seconds of this, Gwen asked, "He's not blaming me? 'Stay open to multiple possibilities pending investigation'? Since when?"

Miles took the optimistic approach and suggested, "Maybe he finally realized that killing isn't Spider-Woman's style. At least, not anymore, from his perspective."

However, Gwen just shook her head in confusion and said, "No way. My dad's too stubborn for that. After Peter, he never would've changed his mind about Spider-Woman."

Miles thought about it for a moment, wondering what could've affected Captain Stacy in this way, but finally just set the thought aside for now and said, "Well, it's a problem for another time. Right now, let's focus on our respective darker halves. We should assume that both Spider-Man and Aaron escaped capture, otherwise the news would've taken the opportunity to report some good news. I think either of us can handle my uncle well enough if it comes to it, but…"

He trailed off there, obviously not wanting to sound offensive, but Gwen got the message anyway and finished for him, "Yeah, I know. Spider-Man presents a bigger problem for both of us. We need to identify his weaknesses. But we still know so little about him!"

"We know that he's white," Miles interjected.

Gwen blinked at Miles with confusion, clearly curious as to how exactly he came by this particular piece of information, but decided that now wasn't the time to ask and quickly tried to recall her train of thought before saying, "Okay, he's white. That narrows it down to about three and a half million people in this city. What else do we know? Ummm… Oh, I know! He's a doctor!"

Now it was Miles' turn to look at Gwen in confusion, asking, "Really? A doctor chose to get involved in our crazy world of super-people? Sounds a bit… strange to me."

"Did you think the evil lab was just for show?" Gwen asked rhetorically. That comment brought another thought to her mind, prompting her to continue, "Maybe that's it! Wherever he worked before he went to work for Murdock, we need to find his old lab! It's bound to have enough evidence for us to figure out his identity ourselves!"

Leaning back against the wall and looking straight ahead in thought, Miles added, "Well, that should be easy enough. We only know of one thing that he did before he was Spider-Man, and that was making the spiders that bit both of you. So that Oscorp research center where you were bit, he must've worked there. And I'd guess he was pretty important there too."

Gwen considered the prospect and questioned, "Isn't there a simpler, faster way we could deal with him?"

"Not unless you have any suggestions," Miles answered.

Gwen was silent for a moment as she tried to come up with something, then asked, "Do you have an apple?"

Confused, Miles looked at her and asked her to repeat it, wanting to make sure he'd heard her right. "An apple?"

"Yeah, an apple," Gwen affirmed.

"How would an apple help us?" Miles questioned. He recognized that he had opened the conversation to any and all suggestions, but if a few hundred thousand pounds of metal couldn't stop Spider-Man, he was hesitant to believe that a high amount of fiber would do much better.

Shrugging, Gwen explained, "Well, Spider-Man told me that he's a doctor, and you know what they say. 'An apple a day-'"

"I'm just gonna stop you right there," Miles quickly cut her off, holding up a hand to silence her before she could finish the sentence. As amusing as her joke was, this really wasn't the time for it. Then, avoiding Gwen's eyes to help himself to keep a smirk from rising to his face, Miles climbed to his feet and offered her a hand as he said, "It sounds like our plan is decided. Hope you're ready for a trip down memory lane, mi vida. I'm taking you on a date to the science fair."

Line Break

Gwen POV

Calling Oscorp's most prestigious public exhibition center a "science fair" was pushing things a bit, but Gwen didn't dwell on that part of what Miles had said for too long. No, she was more intrigued by how he'd referred to their current excursion.

Of course, an argument could be made that their Homecoming night had been hers and Miles' first technical date, but this was the first time that Miles had made it official, which made this Gwen's first official date ever, and while she wouldn't have chosen to share it with anyone else, the timing and circumstances were somewhat questionable.

Standing next to Miles at the back of their tour group, Gwen leaned over next to her new boyfriend and whispered, "Not that this isn't nice, but please tell me that not all of our dates are going to not-so-secretly be about work."

"Tell you what, this date will be about saving the city, and the next one will be a nice Italian dinner," Miles reassured her quietly out of the corner of his mouth as he pretended to focus on what their tour guide was telling them.

Gwen fiddled with Miles' leather jacket sleeve idly to get his attention as she told him, "Yes on the Italian, no on the nice. I know you could afford some really fancy dinner if we really wanted it, but we're still just teenagers, Miles. A normal pizza lunch would be plenty."

Still not looking at her, Miles responded, "Pizza. You got it."

Smiling brightly, Gwen stood up on the tips of her toes and placed a quiet kiss to Miles' cheek, which finally caused his face to lose some of its composure as the corners of his mouth involuntarily curved upward.

Just then, the tour group began to move onwards, and as Gwen and Miles hung back as the rest of the group moved on, he abruptly grabbed her hand to get her attention and gestured discreetly towards a door behind them that was labeled, "Security".

Getting the message, Gwen and Miles slowed down drastically as they pretended to keep following the group for a moment, but as soon as the group passed out of sight, they both turned around swiftly and walked back towards the door. Gwen stood guard next to the door as Miles held a small card over the electronic lock above the handle, which began to blink red repeatedly as it read whatever signal the card was sending it.

As this was happening, Miles pulled off the backpack that he wore with his free hand and reached inside to slip on one of his gauntlets, Gwen hearing the mechanism lock into place around his wrist just as the lock on the door finally turned to a bright green. Once that was done, Miles pocketed the card and handed the backpack off to Gwen, then his mask formed over his face as he opened the security room door and slipped inside before the door closed again behind him. While she waited for Miles, Gwen kept her head bowed low beneath her hood as she tried to ignore the sounds of scuffling and muffled chaos emanating from behind the door, impatiently waiting to get inside as she didn't want to be seen here by anyone.

Fortunately, she only needed to wait for a few seconds before all fell silent and the door was opened once again from the inside, at which point Gwen quickly slipped inside and shut the door behind herself, then turned to find Miles already working on erasing the building's recent security footage.

Ignoring the small pile of unconscious security guards in the corner of the room, Gwen pulled off the black windbreaker that she had been wearing over the upper part of her costume and threw it aside, then reached into the backpack she was holding to grab her mask and gloves, all of which she put on before also grabbing Miles' other gauntlet, which she brought over to set on the table next to Miles, not disturbing his concentration as she reached around his front to unzip his jacket and pulled on the back with her other hand to make his tri-point collar pop up in the back, restoring his disguised civilian attire to looking like his usual Prowler costume.

By the time she was done with that, Miles had finished with his own work, and with one final keystroke, he proceeded to lean over the desk and pull down on a fire alarm switch, which immediately caused a loud, constant ringing sound to blare through the entire building. Then, as Miles grabbed his other gauntlet off the table to slip onto his free hand, he turned back to Gwen and said, "Alright, Spider-Woman. In about thirty seconds, everyone should've been evacuated from the building, and then we'll have ten minutes tops to search the building for anything on Spider-Man."

"Ten minutes?" Gwen questioned. "That's not much time to search a building as big as this."

"I can give most of the building a quick sweep with my scanners, but you should head up to the genetics lab to give it a more thorough look. That's where the evidence will most likely be," Miles advised her.

Then, with their thirty seconds up, Miles walked over and opened the door to step outside, preparing to begin his own search as he gave Gwen one last look and told her, "Good luck."

And then, in a blur of magenta light, Miles had disappeared, and after giving the wall-mounted clock next to herself a quick glance to mark how much time they had left, Gwen left the room as well, though she ran in the opposite direction from where Miles had gone. She leapt powerfully across the expanse of the entire lobby and stuck to the side of a stone pillar across the room before beginning to run up it. Even after all this time, she remembered her first visit to this building and could easily recall where every single room that they'd visited was without even needing to look at any of the maps and signs that had been put up for tour groups, particularly the genetics lab that she was going towards.

How could she not remember it? Ever since the day that she had gotten her powers, she had never visited the place where it had happened, but inside this building, her life had changed forever.

She recalled every moment like it was yesterday, her and Peter standing in the back of their group to avoid drawing negative attention, listening intently to the teacher while other students like Flash Thompson and his buddies quietly shoved each other around and lowly chuckled at themselves like they were actually doing something amusing instead of just being rude.

Then, Flash pushed one of his friends a bit too hard and caused them to fall backwards and bump Peter with their full body weight while Peter was in the middle of trying to draw the scientist's attention to the fact that one of their specimens seemed to be missing, nearly knocking him over while he was speaking, and he would have done if Gwen had not quickly caught her friend by the arm to steady him.

Gwen threw an angry glare over at Flash while Peter straightened his glasses and blushed furiously, his ears burning as his barely-existent dignity was damaged in public once again, this time in front of numerous accomplished scientists who were everything Peter had always aspired to be, one of whom now turned her head away from Peter to hide her humorous smile and instantly forgot all about what Peter had been saying.

As their class had begun to move on with the tour, Gwen and Peter had hung back for a moment as Peter looked down and gritted his teeth helplessly, and Gwen had placed her hand on his shoulder to try to comfort him, but she wouldn't manage to get a word out before a small spider that had been lowering itself from the ceiling on a thin web had landed on her hand, and Gwen instantly felt a momentary but sharp pain erupt in the back of her hand, which she had exclaimed at as she tossed the spider away.

Peter had instantly forgotten his own troubles upon hearing Gwen's cry of pain, but she had waved him off, saying that it was nothing. At that time, neither of them had known that that bite was indeed not nothing. It was very much something, despite how innocent or natural it had seemed at the moment.

But now wasn't the time to be dwelling on the past. Gwen needed to focus on the here and now and get her job done. A lot depended on Spider-Woman, whether or not most people in this city could see it, but Gwen was still determined to do whatever she could, even without recognition or praise, and just trust that it would all be worth it in the end. And right now, this was the best good thing that she could do.

Once Gwen was outside the genetics lab, she flipped off the wall and landed in front of the lab's door before firing a burst of webbing at the hand-scanner mounted on the wall, which immediately beeped softly as the door unlocked. This was a trick that Gwen had discovered earlier in her career as Spider-Woman, that her extremely pliable webs could fill any imprint scanner perfectly so that it was read affirmatively. It was a maneuver that had served her well on several occasions, and this time was no exception.

Stepping forward and pulling the door open as she stepped inside the lab, Gwen immediately began to look around the room for anything that met the requirements of her search. She saw nothing at first glance, but that was expected. This room had been well-kept over the last year, and most of the equipment in here was brand new and top of the line, though Gwen's hopes were lifted upon seeing that the old glass exhibits that had once held the genetically-altered spiders were still here, though they had been shoved into the back of the room and were now empty.

Going over near the glass cases, Gwen opened the drawer beneath them to see a small display of the scientists involved in the making of the old specimens, of which there were fortunately only two. Gwen was in the middle of silently cheering at their good luck when her smile abruptly fell from her face as she realized that one of the scientists, labeled as an assistant on the project, was a woman. The other, labeled as the head scientist, was Norman Osborn, founder and CEO of Oscorp and supposedly one of many people that had employed and eventually tried to destroy Spider-Man.

Her hopes falling, Gwen was just barely closing the drawer in disappointment when an unfamiliar logo caught her eye, written in tiny font in the very corner of the display. It was the shape of a yellow octagon next to the words, "Made in collaboration with Octavius Industries".

Gwen had never heard of Octavius Industries, but recognizing that they had just this one last hope unless Miles found something more concrete, she shut the drawer quickly and instead pulled out her cell phone and opened her web browser to search for the name of this mysterious company.

As she was looking through the results, she nearly jumped in surprise when she suddenly heard Miles' voice approaching her from behind, saying, "There's nothing. No evidence throughout the rest of the building, not even an employment log that goes back further than four months. I hope you found something."

"I might've," Gwen responded hesitantly, and Miles paused in his tracks for a moment before he suddenly rushed over to her side, trying to see what she was looking at.

Tilting her phone to show Miles what she'd found, particularly an image of a rather overweight, chubby man in glasses, Gwen explained, "I found evidence connecting the altered spider project to a company called Octavius Industries. It was a small start-up company before it collapsed, just a few employees during its time, and it dealt mostly in robotics, prosthetics and business automation, that sort of thing."

"Doesn't sound like the sort of company you'd usually bring in for a genetics experiment," Miles commented.

Nodding in agreement, Gwen said, "That's exactly what I thought. But when I dug into the founder's history, I found out that Norman Osborn has worked with him before. They were even at school together! Lab partners and whatnot."

"So Osborn would've been familiar with the guy's work in more than just robotics, even if no one else knew his name," Miles recognized.

Nodding again, Gwen agreed, "Yeah, and get this. Two months after the spider bite that gave me my powers, Octavius Industries was destroyed by numerous undisclosed lawsuits from Oscorp, and the founder of the company disappeared and hasn't been heard from since."

Looking down at the picture of the man on Gwen's screen, seeming slightly doubtful now, Miles asked, "Wait, so you're saying… This guy? I don't know, Gwen. He doesn't exactly have… You know, the right build to be Spider-Man."

"When I got my powers, it changed my body to be more lean and muscled," Gwen reminded him. "And yeah, I get that this guy doesn't look quite right for the part, but honestly, neither of us really know the limits of how much those spider bites can change you to suit your new abilities. But I think this is it, Miles. All the evidence points to this: that Spider-Man's real name is Dr. Otto Octavius."

Whether or not Miles still had questions or concerns about this claim, Gwen did not get to find out, however, as her Spider-Sense abruptly tingled powerfully in her head. She instinctively pushed Miles to the side, but before she could jump out of the way herself, a long white table suddenly came flying towards her from behind, flipping end over end until it crashed into her and knocked her back through the wall.

Gwen was launched out of the genetics lab and crashed to the floor in another room that she could only assume was the geology department, given the number of rocks spread across all of the tables around her. Climbing back to her feet with a groan, Gwen looked up towards the hole in the wall, where Spider-Man could be seen easily climbing through to follow after her, and not bothering to wonder how he'd found them this time, said, "You know, I'm pretty sure there's a rule against roughhousing in the lab."

While her enemy was momentarily distracted by her comment, Gwen immediately followed it up by springing back towards Spider-Man to go on the offensive, shooting a web line behind herself as she did so to grab a large rock off an examination table, intending to swing it around to hit Spider-Man.

However, to her surprise, she was the one that was pulled backwards instead as the rock proved to be much heavier than expected, resulting in Gwen being yanked backwards by her own web as the rock was merely pulled off of the table and fell rather anticlimactically to the ground.

Gwen got back to her feet once again and looked in confusion at the rock. It was only about three times the size of her head, which she figured that she would easily be able to lift with her superpowered strength. Then, she looked around the room for an answer and suddenly noticed that a bucket full of rocks on another table was labeled "moon rocks".

Apparently, this wasn't the geology room after all, and what Gwen had just tried to grab with her web was not, as she had originally believed, a regular boulder.

Gesturing in annoyance at the ridiculously heavy rock on the ground, Gwen exclaimed, "Seriously? All the rocks in here I could have grabbed, and I grabbed an asteroid? The odds of that have to be… astronomical."

Still standing on the other side of the room, Spider-Man looked upwards and let out a sigh of annoyance before he was suddenly hit in the back by a dashing (in more ways than one) Miles, who watched Spider-Man soar into the back of the room before he narrowed his eyes at Gwen and told her, "If you're waiting on a rim shot sound effect for your pun, you're going to need to make it yourself."

Putting a hand on her hip, Gwen responded, "I'd be happy to. But do you have a drum?"

Miles gestured with his head at Spider-Man and answered, "Not on me, no. But maybe the good doctor here can give you something to hit."

Taking his cue perfectly, Spider-Man began to slowly and menacingly rise back to his feet as he narrowed his eyes at Miles and told him, "No need to act so disingenuous, Mr. Morales. Surely someone of your mental aptitude has determined by now that neither of you will be walking away from this most recent encounter of ours."

"Didn't I bury you alive last time we fought? Like... five hours ago?" Miles asked rhetorically, more to remind Spider-Man of the circumstances than seeking an actual answer.

"The result of a stroke of luck and an unworthy trick, nothing more!" Spider-Man argued.

"The 'trick' was called gravity, Doc," Miles told him. "Look it up."

Flabbergasted by this comment, Spider-Man was rendered speechless as Gwen and Miles watched his mouth open and close helplessly beneath his mask repeatedly, apparently too angry for even a witty retort. Frankly Gwen was impressed by this accomplishment from Miles, which is why she now chose to remain silent and watch on in amusement when she usually would've joined in on the conversation by now.

Spider-Man glared at Miles uncomprehendingly for a few moments longer, then apparently decided to simplify the equation and flicked his hands, causing the tips of his fingers to extend into small claws within his gloves with a smooth shkt sound.

"Are those claws?" Miles asked, sounding insulted. He looked at his own clawed gauntlets, then asked the man, "Dude, are you sure you're really 'Spider-Man'? Spider-Woman doesn't have those!"

"I'm not trying to be Spider-Woman," Spider-Man responded smugly, finally getting his voice back. "I am the superior Spider in every way!"

"You know, that would be a really weird thing to brag about out of context," Gwen pointed out, also taking the opportunity to speak once again.

Clearly upset that his new claws weren't quite getting the reaction he had hoped for, Spider-Man fumed in place as he looked back and forth between them and slowly declared, "You children… the both of you… I promise that you will both suffer as you die."

"Forgot your Hippocratic Oath, Otto?" Gwen asked.

By now, Spider-Man was practically growling at them both in rage and looked like he was just about to pounce on Gwen to begin putting his fancy claws to good use, but then he suddenly froze completely, his eyes going wide as he asked, "What did you call me?"

"She called you Otto, as in Dr. Otto Octavius," Miles answered for Gwen, apparently taking great pleasure in the way that Spider-Man seemed to flinch every time the name was said.

Also taking note of this reaction, Gwen asked, "That's your real name. Isn't it?"

At this point, Spider-Man was actually shaking with barely-suppressed anger as he hissed out, "That name… means nothing to me anymore."

"It's because of the coincidence of a guy named 'Octavius' becoming a supervillain themed after an eight-legged bug, isn't it?" Miles asked.

"You imbeciles!" Spider-Man yelled at them abruptly, his fury finally exploding. "Fakes! Poseurs! Do you not understand the awesome might, the frightfulness of your greatest enemy? Next to my resolve, the both of you appear pusillanimous!"

"Joke's on you, I don't even know what that means!" Gwen retorted smartly.

Now entirely fed up with the both of them refusing to take him seriously, Spider-Man let out a roaring battle cry and leapt towards Gwen with his hands outstretched like he wanted to throttle her. Just before he could reach her, however, Miles suddenly appeared in a blur between them and grabbed Spider-Man by the throat instead before launching upwards, leaving a large hole in the ceiling where they had both exited, seemingly going towards the roof.

Sighing as she looked up through the hole, Gwen fired a web line from both wrists onto the ceiling and slingshotted herself after the two other super-people, quietly muttering to herself as she went about how all three of them could probably use some counseling instead of trying to solve every problem with their fists.

Just as Spider-Man shoved Miles off of himself and kicked him backwards, falling down through the air back towards the roof of the building, Gwen flew like an arrow right between the two of them and shot a web onto Miles to swing him back around so that he could return Spider-Man's punch, which sent both of them flying even higher.

However, after hitting Spider-Man, Miles had reached the vertex of his jump and began to fall back downwards once again, but he used his short moment of weightlessness to grab onto Gwen's web line with his free hand before throwing her at Spider-Man as well, which she had anticipated and responded to by giving Spider-Man a powerful punch to the face, sending him flying higher still, all of them having been in the air for this entire fight so far.

While he was being thrown upwards, though, Miles jumped up above him, bouncing off the air to get there, then blasted him back down towards the ground with a second burst of energy from his shoes. Below themselves, Gwen and Miles watched, disappointed but unsurprised, as Spider-Man shot a web to catch himself just before he would've crashed into the rooftop, allowing himself to land on his feet, not softly but not badly (to their annoyance), and look back up at Gwen and Miles with a look that was clearly anticipatory for when they came back down to join him.

As they fell back towards Spider-Man, Gwen looked around, able to see quite a lot from up here, and noticed that a large crowd was gathered outside Oscorp's exhibition center, probably even more people than had been inside the building when she and Miles had emptied it and slowly growing in number, looking up at the scene taking place over the roof with awe and concern.

Gwen hoped that these people would just assume what was going on up here was nothing more than a publicity stunt arranged by Oscorp, that they wouldn't be able to see what it really was, but numerous camera flashes from the crowd told her that that would probably not be the case. It looked like she would be making the news again tonight, or tomorrow at the latest. Hooray. Even more importantly, she wished that the people would have the sense to get out of the area, the memory of too many times that she'd needed to save innocent bystanders from supervillains coming to mind.

Speaking of the supervillain in question, Spider-Man didn't even seem to care about the fact that he was currently being caught on camera, in broad daylight, for the first time in his career. At first glance, such a fact may seem like it would be to Gwen and Miles' benefit, for the world to finally find out about Spider-Man's existence, but at the moment, it just meant that Spider-Man was too angry and determined to even worry about his own problems, which wasn't really great news for his two teenage adversaries.

Their only advantage against an enraged Spider-Man seemed to be their superior numbers, making them feel lucky that Miles' Uncle Aaron wasn't here, but that was a small comfort against a foe as relentless as the one they were currently fighting. Still, they worked with what they had, focusing on team combos to outmaneuver Spider-Man.

As they landed on the roof once again, they were careful to land on either side of him, Miles a few yards in front of him and Gwen a few yards behind. Immediately recognizing that he was surrounded, Spider-Man narrowed his eyes and crouched low in preparation to defend from an attack, though he kept his eyes on Miles.

Gwen waited patiently for Prowler to make the first move, which he did after only a few seconds, dashing towards Spider-Man faster than his Spider-Senses could warn him. However, Spider-Man's preparation for the attack proved even more effective than his Spider-Sense, and he sidestepped Miles' charge before forcefully backhanding him away, throwing Miles back into his original position with hardly any effort as he taunted, "You're so predictable, Mr. Morales. I've been studying the Prowler's fighting style since before you even held the mantle, and your charge is easily anticipated."

While Spider-Man's attention was off of her, Gwen fired a web line at his shoulder, and this time Spider-Man did use his Spider-Sense as he tilted his body just slightly to dodge it without even looking, then looked back over his shoulder with an expression of amusement as he added, "And you are every bit as predictable as he is, Ms. Stacy."

Suddenly, the web line next to Spider-Man's head was pulled taut, drawing his attention onto it before he looked back around and saw that Miles had grabbed the other end of the line, keeping a firm hold on it as he said mockingly, "Yet you didn't predict that, did you?"

Then, Miles gave the web a firm tug with all the strength in his gauntlet, resulting in Gwen getting pulled towards Spider-Man faster than he could react, and bigger than he could dodge, delivering a powerful mid-air kick to his gut that sent him sprawling across the rooftop, all the air knocked out of him extremely forcefully, finally coming to a stop laying on his front.

Before he could get back to his feet, Miles ran up next to him and armed the net launchers on both of his gauntlets before firing them onto Spider-Man, holding him down with double the strength that had once restrained Gwen for over half an hour. He immediately began to struggle against his bonds, but Gwen knew that not even Spider-Man stood a chance against two of Miles' nets at once.

Standing over their fallen adversary triumphantly, Gwen told him, "It's over, Octavius."

Still grunting with effort, the muscles of his shoulders currently able to easily be seen bulging against the skin-tight fabric of his suit, Spider-Man turned his head sideways to glare at Gwen and managed to get out in labored breaths, "This… isn't over… until I say… it is…. And my name… is… Spider-Man!"

With that final word, Spider-Man suddenly stopped pushing back against the nets covering him and instead curled inward, and then something unexpected happened. The large red symbol on his back that vaguely resembled a spider (though it was far different from the symbol on his chest) opened up four small holes positioned around it, two on the left of his spine and two on the right.

All at once, out of each of these holes emerged four long, red pieces of metal. Each one was of equal length as they unfolded out as far as they could, each one far too large for Gwen to understand how even one of them could've fit inside the back of his suit. They were all shaped exactly the same as well, artificially jointed along the sides several times for freedom of movement, extensive and tapered at the ends while the very tips were pointed, like each one was essentially just a technologically advanced, automated spike that was clearly designed to mimic the appearance of an actual spider's legs.

Before either Gwen or Miles could react to this new and unforeseeable occurrence, all four of Spider-Man's new legs impaled themselves through the holes in the nets covering him and pulled outwards, quickly doing the impossible and actually pulling both nets apart, where they faded out of existence as soon as they lost their connection to their other power sources.

Gwen and Prowler both took a few steps back, becoming defensive again when faced with this new show of strength, and as Spider-Man stood tall above them, he ignored them both for a moment as he examined the workmanship of his new arms casually and commented, "Ah. Perfect. I had hoped that my latest project was field-ready. I thank you, Spider-Woman and Prowler, for giving me an incentive to test them." He then turned towards them with a devious smirk and added, "Now, let us begin further testing and see what these new toys of mine can do."

Holding up a finger to make him wait for a moment, Gwen pointed out, "Don't we have to sign an experimental consent form first?"

Rather than answering, Spider-Man suddenly leapt towards them, his four spike-ended mechanical legs held out in front of himself like he was going to impale them, and Miles quickly grabbed Gwen and pulled both of them sideways to avoid the attack. But missing the first time didn't deter Spider-Man whatsoever, sadly, and he immediately began to eagerly give chase after them, apparently still reveling in the success of his latest creation.

As Gwen and Miles kept running back across the rooftop to avoid the crazed scientist, Miles commented, "I guess he's not too stressed about the red tape. Probably because he now has everything he needs to cut through it all."

Looking over at him suspiciously, Gwen asked, "You're not still bitter that he has claws, are you?"

Throwing his hands up in exasperation, Miles said, "Why does he need claws? He's Spider-Man! Claws are my thing! And now he has those estúpido leg things, which actually fits his style. He doesn't need extra spiked limbs and claws!"

"You know, I see your point, but could we maybe talk about this later?" Gwen asked, trying to remind Miles that they were kind of busy right now trying not to die.

Just in time, Miles looked back over his shoulder to check on Spider-Man and found him jumping towards them looking like he was about ready to stab them both with his legs. Just before he could accomplish this, however, Miles charged up his right gauntlet and spun around to punch Spider-Man away from them. Unfortunately, before the older man could hit the ground, his legs folded around him protectively to take the brunt of the impact, helping him to roll quickly to a stop before he stood back up looking completely unfazed and resumed the chase.

Miles then turned to Gwen and admitted, "Alright, fair enough. I'll save my complaining until after we deal with this guy."

At that point, however, they ran out of places that they could run on the rooftop, and seeing as this science center was along the shore and somewhat separated from any other buildings, they had nowhere to go, at least not if they wanted to keep this fight contained. Spider-Man had pushed them into a corner, and he was beginning to close in on them yet again.

To solve the issue, both Gwen and Miles silently came to an agreement to stop running and turned around to face Spider-Man's charge instead. As the red and black-clad supervillain approached them, Gwen fired bursts of webbing at him to slow him down, but Spider-Man didn't even slow down as his four metal limbs placed themselves in front of him to catch the webbing before they ripped it apart. However, while the legs were occupied momentarily, Miles took his split-second opportunity to dash towards Spider-Man and kick him away forcefully as soon as the metal legs were out of the way, knocking him back yet again with a blast from his shoes.

Sadly, this still didn't seem to deter Spider-Man and only bought them a few seconds to work out what they would do next.

"You have any ideas?" Gwen asked Miles as they crouched low defensively and warily watched Spider-Man trying to recover.

Miles was silent for a second, then answered, "If the legs weren't considered battle-ready before this, then they're probably unfinished… I might be able to do something, but you'll need to buy me some time. A minute. Maybe a little more."

Sighing to herself in resignation, Gwen shook her head and muttered, "I had a bad feeling you'd say something like that."

Still, she recognized the necessity of her task and began running forward to carry it out without any further protest. One she'd determined that she had enough momentum, she leapt at Spider-Man while calling out, "Hey, Doc! I think we need to have a talk about your anger issues! Have you tried yoga?"

Just before she reached him, Gwen saw Spider-Man strike out towards her with all six of his arms, showing how he had developed a strong desire to silence her jokes, just as Gwen had always expected, but before he could hit her, Gwen demonstrated some of the yoga she had just mentioned and how it could be applied in combat, grabbing onto and flipping around Spider-Man's bottom left arm so that she landed on the ground on her back right beneath him, though she positioned the lower half of her body upwards and did the splits in an impressive show of gymnastic ability that planted a powerful kick in Spider-Man's gut, slipping right through all of his defenses.

As he was kicked away, Spider-Man was knocked off his feet and into the air, but he reacted to it quickly and did a backflip in midair before landing in perfect execution of Gwen's three-point landing, his metal legs all impaling themselves into the ground around him to stabilize his landing.

However, Gwen didn't give him a moment to recover and immediately did a handspring back to her feet before firing a web line on either side of him and slingshotting herself right into him once again, sending them both flying back to the other side of the rooftop.

Spider-Man landed on his back the first time they touched the ground again, grunting as he was shoved down into the stone beneath his back by Gwen kneeling atop him, but as they bounced and rolled in the air again, this time Spider-Man made sure that Gwen was the one to slam into the ground, his legs grabbing the ground on either side of them to drag them to a stop with Gwen's head dangling off the edge of the building.

Not at all caring about the crowd beneath them that would surely be seeing every moment of their battle, Spider-Man then began to pummel Gwen furiously, striking her repeatedly across the face as she lay practically helpless beneath him, Gwen hearing the ground beneath her begin to crack from the force of the blows.

Whether because he trusted his mechanized limbs to protect him if necessary or because he was just too angry to even remember Miles' presence at the moment, Spider-Man didn't even bother glancing back at where Prowler was hopefully getting close to finishing whatever he was working on. Instead, he focused completely on hurting Gwen as badly as he could while Gwen focused on taking as much punishment as her enemy could give her to buy Miles as much time as possible to put his plan into effect.

And it seemed to be working, because the pain continued to build for several more seconds, and just when Gwen thought that she may be about to black out, it all stopped quite abruptly as Spider-Man suddenly let out a yell indicating that he had been surprised by some pain of his own, and then all of his body weight disappeared off of Gwen in the next moment.

Hesitantly opening her eyes despite the strain of the effort, Gwen propped herself up on her elbows and looked over towards where Spider-Man's exclamations of shock, affliction, and anger were still coming and saw a rather strange sight that might've been funny if it weren't such a terrible thing to watch.

Spider-Man's legs that had previously seemed to respond to his every mental command were now viciously attacking their master, all four spiked limbs repeatedly curling inwards to stab at Spider-Man himself, who clearly needed all of his strength and concentration to fend off the attacks before they could kill him. Still, despite his best efforts, the legs were too fast and powerful for even Spider-Man to counter, resulting in him already having several deep cuts across his costume, bleeding openly and steadily growing in number as the masked doctor tried to back away from this new threat, but his efforts were all in vain as this particular threat was quite literally connected to him.

Turning her gaze onto Miles, who was looking quite proud even with his mask obscuring his facial expression, Gwen allowed herself a small smile as she noted how Miles had turned Spider-Man's greatest advantage in this fight into his greatest disadvantage and thus returned the upper hand to them. Perhaps this fight would be a victory after all!

However, the fight was not over quite yet. As Gwen was getting back to her feet, she nearly fell over again as the entire building was shaken by a powerful tremor. At first she was worried that it may have indicated the arrival of Spider-Man's noticeably absent partner, Miles' Uncle Aaron. Thankfully though, that concern was relieved a moment later when she recognized that it had instead been caused by Spider-Man's robotic arms striking out to hit the building in between their attacks on the man whose back they were attached to, each one as strong as an actual Spider-person's arm and apparently not content with simply one target.

Gwen looked at Miles questioningly about this, who met her gaze and called to her, "The best I could do was activate some kind of 'frenzy mode'. They're not targeting Spider-Man specifically, it's more like they're just attacking everything they can reach, so keep your distance."

Gwen nodded in understanding, saying a silent apology to whoever would have to fix the damage being done to the building, and returned to watching Spider-Man getting torn apart by his own creations, awaiting the moment that he was finally injured enough for her and Miles to come in and easily apprehend their defeated enemy.

But then, at that moment, Spider-Man also seemed to realize the same thing, that even if he were to defeat his arms, he would be in no condition to fight Prowler and Spider-Woman by the time he managed it. And so, with one final glare at Gwen, Spider-Man suddenly turned and began to run off towards the opposite end of the rooftop, moving somewhat awkwardly as he still had to keep fighting for his life as he did all this, but even when Miles tried to get in his way, Spider-Man just pushed him forcefully aside, sending him flying twenty feet with one hand, and jumped away from the building upon reaching the edge of the rooftop, shooting a web with one hand to swing away while his other hand kept the metal arms from impaling their creator.

Not willing to let Spider-Man get away when they had him at his weakest point, Gwen and Miles began to run after him, intending to pursue him across the city if they had to, but suddenly a loud cracking sound behind them caught their attention instead, and they both spun around to see the front of the science center beginning to break into pieces, cracks spider-webbing their way through the stone as what looked like the entire front wall began threatening to collapse, no doubt due to how it had been damaged by Spider-Man's destructive powers and creations. Then, the sound of screams echoed up the side of the building from the ground below, reminding Gwen forcefully of the crowd that was currently gathered below the building, some of whom may not be able to escape if this wall fell down.

Realizing the same thing, Miles thrust out both of his hands and tried to fire his hard light nets at the breaking edge of the rooftop, hoping to delay its fall, but he had forgotten that he had already used both of his nets trying to restrain Spider-Man and they wouldn't be recharged for some time, causing them to simply whir pitifully back at him as a notice that they had insufficient power.

Knowing that he wouldn't be able to do much here, Gwen turned to Miles and pointed after Spider-Man to say, "Go! Follow Octavius, he'll lead us to where Murdock's hiding! I'll handle this and meet you back at the stash!"

With that said, Gwen didn't wait to see if Miles would listen to her and instead ran over to the edge of the rooftop herself and began shooting out wide stretches of webbing, trying to fill in the cracks in the stone to slow the building's collapse, though she could see that it was already too late to stop it completely. One way or another, this wall was coming down now.

Jumping off the edge once she'd done as much as she could from up here, Gwen shot a web line onto the wall and began swinging around it, securing hundreds of huge pieces of stone in place, but it still wasn't enough.

Fortunately, she wasn't working alone, as her Spider-Sense clued her in on the fact that the numerous squad cars had finally arrived, probably originally to break up the fight on the rooftop, but the police were now instead working to usher the crowds out of the area as fast as they could, doing their best to keep everyone calm as they moved them out of harm's way, unaware that they were currently being aided by their most-hated vigilante target who swung back and forth above their heads entangling hundreds of falling stones. Still, some were escaping Gwen's grasp, falling to the ground with thunderous crashes, and though they hadn't hit anyone yet, they had gotten close several times, prompting Gwen to double her efforts yet again, pushing herself to her maximum limits.

However, her task suddenly became much harder all at once as much of the webbing holding the wall intact began to break under the strain all at once. Looking below, Gwen could see a few more people that still needed to move out of the way and looked back at the wall while muttering to herself, "No, no, no…"

Deciding that she only had one option, Gwen swung in front of the wall and pressed her back against it while shooting a line of webbing out onto either side of herself, holding the lines tightly as she strained to hold up the entire wall with merely the strength of her own body.

This bought a few more seconds and allowed almost everyone else to get out of the way, but one final figure was still beneath her, a small boy, maybe about seven or eight years old, who was staring enraptured at the sight of what must've looked to him like an entire building toppling over above him while one person held it up, amazed out of his senses by the sight.

Gwen struggled desperately to keep the wall from falling on the boy as she looked downwards and called out, "Hey, little guy! You need to move, okay?"

The boy didn't seem to hear her warning, but still, despite how painful it was for Gwen to keep holding this massive wall up, she didn't alow herself to falter for a moment. No matter what, she would not let this little boy get hurt.

But perhaps it wouldn't be up to her, as a moment later, a few large pieces of marble broke free from the rest of the wall beneath her and began falling downwards right towards the boy. "No!" Gwen called out in panic, but it was already too late for her to do anything to stop it.

Then, right on time, one figure broke free from the rest of the crowd that was retreating away from the building, a cop that had finally noticed the last remaining danger. However, as the figure jumped towards the boy to push him out of the way of the falling debris, Gwen caught a glimpse of his face and realized that it wasn't just any cop. It was her dad, Captain George Stacy, and with a desperate tackle, he just barely managed to push the boy out of the way before the rubble finished its descent.

But Gwen couldn't feel relief at the child's safety, because at the same moment, she was overwhelmed with horror as she watched the stones instead fall down right on top of her dad, burying him beneath at least a foot of rock.

Knowing that time was of the essence and she couldn't afford to freeze now, Gwen pulled her arms inwards as far as she could, lacing her webs against the wall, then released the two lines and fell down below. She knew that she had only seconds before her webs would fail again and the wall would come crashing down on them, so Gwen acted quickly and began roughly digging through the large rocks covering her dad, her superhuman strength allowing her to easily lift the impossible weight of each stone.

Once she had successfully unearthed him, she gingerly picked him up and threw him over her shoulder, then leapt away from the Oscorp building while firing a web line behind herself to grab the little boy and pull him out of the way. She managed to get all of them clear just before her webs failed and the entire wall behind them collapsed, Gwen landing on the ground first and gently laying her injured dad back on the ground before standing back up to quickly catch the flying boy, who ran back towards the crowd as soon as Gwen set him back on his feet, but she couldn't worry about anything else going on around her at the moment.

Kneeling down next to her father, Gwen tried her best to prop him up in a sitting position as she examined a large, deep cut on his forehead. Beyond that bad-looking cut, Captain Stacy had also clearly sustained several other severe wounds, many of them internal, as Gwen found out when she tried to place a hand on his chest to check his heartbeat, but her dad closed his eyes and leaned back with a sharp intake of breath through clenched teeth, after which Gwen determined that his chest had been crushed, meaning he probably had a collapsed lung. This theory was proven correct when Captain Stacy abruptly coughed roughly and spat up large globs of blood out of his mouth.

Groaning out in pain, George looked around with unfocused, rapidly-blinking eyes and asked, "Sp- Spider-Woman?"

Wanting to reassure her dad to keep him from talking and aggravating his injuries, Gwen moved her hand to his shoulder and confirmed, "It's me, Captain. Now, please, just… stay still, alright? You're gonna be alright."

Gwen looked back towards the crowd of people, most of whom seemed hesitant to approach the scene, but one woman, probably the mother of the boy that Gwen's dad had saved judging by the way that she had rushed forward and now kneeled and embraced the child while clutching his head against her chest, crying tears of relief.

At the moment, the sight of the woman's joy only served to anger Gwen, wondering how anyone could be acting like the danger had passed when someone was clearly hurt on the ground not ten feet from her. Looking the woman in the eyes, Gwen ordered fiercely, "Call an ambulance! This man needs help!"

Startled, the woman looked Gwen in the eyes, then down at the man who had saved her child, then back at Gwen, and nodded before shifting her son into one of her arms while she used the other to pull out her phone and make an emergency call.

Once she was assured that this had been done, Gwen returned her own attention to her dad, who was now trying to pull himself upwards despite not being in any condition to move, but Gwen held him down easily with her great strength and told him, "Sit tight, Captain, EMTs are on their way."

"No," her dad protested weakly as he continued to fight her. "I need- If they don't get here in time, I need-"

"They'll get here," Gwen insisted, trying to convince herself as much as her dad while she held back tears beneath her mask. Her dad was not going to die, not here, not like this, so similar to how Peter had died. "They're on their way, you're going to be fine."

"But Gwen," George pled, causing Gwen to fall silent in shock before he continued, "Gwen, she's my daughter, and I need to tell her-"

"Whatever it is, you can tell her yourself, just stay still until we can get you help, okay?" Gwen cut him off sternly, her vision starting to swim as she looked him over for something - anything! - that she could do to help him, but nothing came to mind.

Looking up at her with an expression full of sad resignation, George said, "Spider-Woman… I guess you get a chance to prove me wrong. Find my daughter and tell her…"

No.

"Captain, just hold on!" Gwen demanded.

"Tell Gwen… to stay away from Miles Morales," her dad finished.

Shocked, Gwen asked, "...What? Miles-?"

"She won't understand, but he's dangerous. He'll hurt her," George explained, taking her hand and pressing a tightly folded piece of paper into it before closing her fingers around it tightly. "Just… Please promise me that you'll get her away from him, and keep her safe. Please. Please, Spider-..."

At that, Captain Stacy's voice trailed off, and with one final deep exhale, his eyes fluttered closed and his head fell backwards, and then he was still.

Terrified, Gwen asked, "Da- Captain Stacy? Captain?"

She received no answer, and Gwen placed a hand on her dad's chest as she desperately repeated, "Captain? Captain Stacy! Captain, say something! Move your finger! Your eyelid! Come on, something! Anything!"

Still, there was no response, neither verbally nor through any kind of movement, and Gwen began lightly shaking him and yelling madly as tears began to stain the inside of her mask, "Captain! Come on! Say something! Move! Breathe! Anything! PLEASE!"

Despite Gwen's pleas, however, nothing she did or said drew any sort of reaction from her dad's still form. The truth of what was happening finally starting to set in, Gwen threw her arms around her dad's body and pulled him close against herself as her tears began to flow even more freely and she started whispering quiet apologies to the man that she now suspected couldn't hear her at all.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Captain Stacy. Please. Don't go."

She stayed there for what felt like an eternity as Gwen hugged her dad's motionless body against her chest, but it was really only a couple seconds before soft footsteps began approaching Gwen from behind, and then her Spider-Sense tingled in warning just before she heard a woman's voice call out, "Spider-Woman! Stay right where you are, and put your hands in the air!"

Looking back over her shoulder worriedly, Gwen saw that the speaker was her dad's long-time devoted friend and ally on the force, Lieutenant Yuri Watanabe. Once, Gwen had met her out of her costume and the two had been quite friendly with one another, but while Gwen's face was hidden beneath her mask, there was nothing to prompt Yuri to lower the pistol in her hands, nor to order the two other officers on either side of her to do the same.

When Gwen didn't obey the orders she'd been given, Yuri cocked her gun threateningly and continued to aim at Gwen as she added, "Last chance, Spider-Woman! Drop Captain Stacy and put your hands up!"

Though Gwen by no means wanted to be arrested, the harder part of this command was actually for her to release her dad, and she instead instinctively pulled him even closer to herself, which made Yuri's eyes narrow angrily, but still, neither she or her officers approached Gwen or fired their weapons, clearly both apprehensive of Spider-Woman's abilities and not wanting to risk shooting their captain.

But then, to Gwen's shock, the woman who was still standing to the side holding on tightly to her recently-rescued son pointed at Gwen's dad in her hands and announced, "She's tricking you! Captain Stacy's dead, she killed him! She's using his body as a shield!"

Gwen was appalled by this outrageous claim, but before she could argue against it, she saw Yuri's eyes shift to give Gwen's dad's body a closer look before realizing that he indeed wasn't breathing. A second later, Gwen's Spider-Sense tingled again, much more powerfully this time, as Yuri yelled to her officers, "She's right! Spider-Woman killed the captain! Open fire!"

Seeing Spider-Woman holding a dead body and finally having an opportunity and an excuse to do what they'd always wanted, the cops immediately began shooting at Gwen, their pistol muzzles flashing with flame repeatedly as they continually fired at her.

Not having a chance to explain herself or try to plead for understanding, Gwen was forced to immediately drop her dad's body to the ground as she leapt backwards to avoid the bullets, twisting her body in midair as she felt the tiny projectiles speed past her, and as soon as the police officers stopped for a moment to reload, Gwen dropped back to the ground on her feet and shot a web line upwards to pull herself away from the area.

More bullets began to follow after her, signifying how the Yuri and her fellow policemen were eager to prevent Gwen's escape, but hitting her in the air was even harder than hitting her on the ground, and within a matter of seconds, Gwen had swung out of their range and landed atop the nearest rooftop to look back down at the wrecked science center.

Gwen couldn't see her dad anymore from up here, and for that she didn't know if she was sorrowful or grateful. But as she finally pulled off the mask that clung tightly to her tearstained face and stared back towards where her last remaining family had just left her forever, Gwen's face scrunched up in a vain effort to suppress her pain and ultimately fell to her knees as quiet sobs racked her body.

A/N: Sorry to leave you guys on a cliffhanger, but just so you know, it's possible (not guaranteed, but possible) that the next chapter may not come out for another two weeks instead of one. With the holidays going on, I'm extremely busy at the moment. Still, I'm continuing to write on this story whenever I get the chance, but I'll need to ask you all for some patience in order to provide you all with the best-quality writing I can offer. Thank you for your understanding, and thanks for reading!