Chapter 4

Miles POV

After he left Gwen back at Dr. Brock's lab and set off to find and disable the bomb, Miles struck up a conversation with Phin while he was traveling. "Mason, what were you thinking, calling her?" he demanded, knowing that Phin would know who he was talking about.

"I was thinking that you were excluding your ex from a case she would never let you keep her out of, and someone had to tell her but you weren't going to," Phin answered.

"Don't lie to me," Miles warned her dangerously. "You've been looking for an excuse to call her ever since I first broke up with her."

"Except you didn't break up with her," Phin reminded him. "Not formally, anyway. It's like she said, you just ghosted her."

"Do you think that she would've let me do it formally?" Miles questioned, and mentally added, Or that I would've?

"Have you ever noticed that you never say her name? Or let anyone else say it?" Phin asked.

Not answering the question, Miles jumped across the street and continued running on the walls of the buildings as he asked another question of his own. "Did you ever consider that maybe I did have a reason for leaving her? That maybe I was doing what I thought was best?"

"If so, I'd say you're about as good at deciding what's best as your uncle was," Phin responded. Miles fell silent at that, his eyes narrowing, and after a few seconds, Phin said, "I'm sorry, that was… I didn't mean-"

Cutting her off forcefully, Miles said, "We'll finish this conversation at another time. For now, maintain radio silence except for directions to the bomb."

Phin seemed grateful for the order, clearly aware that she had put her foot in her mouth, and Miles did his best to put her words out of his mind in the meantime, but it wasn't easy. For all his mastery of the stone-faced expression, it could never change what was going on behind it, so all he could do was hide how much the things he saw and heard affected him. Still, he did his best to convince himself that there had been no truth in Phin's statement. He was not like his uncle, not in any ways but the ones he chose. And the things he did when he took matters into his own hands to protect the people he cared about, no one knew how much it hurt him to do it, but it had to be done, and Miles would rather take all the pain for himself than watch others get hurt when he had the power to do something about it.

But then, who would accept that reasoning? Not Phin. Not his mom. Definitely not Gwen. It was a difficult choice, but it was one that Miles had to be willing to make for the sake of everyone else, and he couldn't afford to let anything get in the way of that, least of all himself.

There was a reason Miles spent more time in the suit than out of it these days, after all. The Prowler had a city to control and a world to protect, and next to that, Miles Morales could afford to take a backseat. The way he saw things, Miles Morales had become the Prowler's useful tool and little more. He was a public face and a source of income, but was only kept around at all anymore because of what he could offer the Prowler, because not including his reputation and his money, Miles represented only the human part of the Prowler, the part of him that could be killed, the part with weaknesses that he couldn't afford in his line of work, like emotions.

A prime example of one of those weaknesses was how Miles had wasted so much time trying to explain his orders to Gwen. He should've just told her what to do and immediately left. He'd been surprised by her arrival, clearly, causing him to act irrationally, and now he had mere minutes to reach the bomb. Unfortunately, the bomb that Miles was currently trying to find seemed to be on the complete opposite side of Hell's Kitchen from Dr. Brock's lab, and even with his enhanced speed capabilities, it was going to take him several minutes to cover that distance.

The time he'd spent talking to Gwen had cost him time he couldn't afford to lose, lest he put innocent lives in danger. As he considered that, Miles made a silent reminder to himself to do better in the future. He couldn't allow Gwen to distract him, not while he was on the job. He had to remember the promise he'd made to himself a year ago: when the mask was on, the heart was gone.

And so, closing off his expression entirely despite knowing that no one would be able to see it anyway beneath his mask, Miles increased the boost power of his shoes with a thought and launched himself further across the rooftops of Hell's Kitchen, his mental timer still counting down the last few minutes before the bomb was supposed to go off. But even pushing himself as fast as he could go, Miles still only reached the bomb's supposed location less than a minute before he'd been told that it would explode. Still, he did reach the correct building in time and quickly activated his scanner to look through all of the walls, searching for anything that looked like a bomb. With everything inside the building, it took him some time to find it, but after a few seconds of carefully looking, he located a small, wired device that had been implanted underneath a table on the lowest floor of the building, well-hidden from sight and perfectly placed to take down the entire building if it blew.

Not wasting any time on niceties, Miles charged up one of his gauntlets and punched his way straight through the walls of the building and towards the bomb. Then, dashing through all of the obstacles in his path, pushing people and furniture roughly out of his way unapologetically and ignoring the panicked screams of disturbed building residents who were surprised by his arrival, Miles blasted his way across the building and grabbed the table with the bomb before looking upwards and jumping straight through the ceiling, launching himself through over a dozen floors in a matter of seconds before he landed on the building's roof and immediately threw the table straight up into the sky with all of his strength, managing to get it hundreds of feet above the buildings as the bomb's timer counted down through its last few seconds. Finally, with that done, Miles let out a breath of relief and continued staring after the explosive-rigged table as he waited for it to explode harmlessly, the threat to the city that Miles had now spent weeks working on finally being safely dealt with.

But then something went wrong. The table blew apart in a massive fireball just as expected, barely still in sight and thus far out of range to do any damage, but the sound of the explosion was far louder than it should've been from here. And it didn't come from above Miles, but rather from all around him, and then before Miles could look around to see why that was, the ground at his feet crumbled to pieces and he fell backwards with a grunt of surprise, unable to catch himself with his current positioning, and then he hit his head hard on something and everything went black.

Line Break

"... Miles! Miles, talk to me! Miles!"

A familiar voice yelling in his ear caused Miles' eyes to flutter open though for a moment, the only thing he could was an electronic screen with a magenta wheel loading and the word "Rebooting…" in the middle. A second later, the screen faded away and was replaced with Miles' normal field of view, or at least normal for how he could see the world through the screen of his Prowler mask.

Groaning as he propped himself up with his arms, Miles tried to recover his senses and remember what had happened, looking around himself for a clue, but his surroundings seemed impossible. Everywhere he looked, he could see only rubble and fire. The air was filled with smoke and the sound of distant sirens wailing and crackling flames. In fact, the smog was so thick that Miles couldn't see the end of the destruction surrounding him, but even the tops of New York's ever-present surrounding towers were out of his view, something that Miles had always thought would be impossible.

Unable to believe what he was seeing, Miles reached up and checked his mask's external cameras, expecting to find that something had been damaged that was causing him to see this illusion, but couldn't find anything wrong with it. Then, his eyes widened as he was forced to process that all this chaos… was real.

Looking beneath himself, Miles saw that he was lying on a pile of rubble, and it suddenly all came back to him, how he'd been standing on top of a building until the ground fell out beneath him, but he was very nearly on ground level now, meaning… the whole building had collapsed? Was that what he was laying on? The last remains of dozens of people's homes? But he'd gotten rid of the bomb! How could this have happened? Sadly, Miles had some idea.

Trying to stand up, Miles looked around at the surrounding flames once again, the result of yet another of his failures, and ultimately fell to his hands and knees, bowing his head as he grit his teeth and closed his eyes to hold back tears of frustration as he thought to himself, No. Not again.

Just then, he noticed that the voice in his ear was still trying to get his attention, yelling, "Miles! Miles, can you hear me?"

Reaching up to his comm system and tapping it to respond, Miles gulped down the lump in his throat and answered, "Yeah. Yeah, I'm here, Mason."

Making an unintelligible noise of anger, Phin responded, "Don't do that, Miles! I was freaking out! Just because you're mad at me-!"

Impatiently cutting her off, Miles raised his head and tried to get up from his knees as he said, "Save it, Mason. Just tell me how many there were."

Phin didn't answer for a moment, but then asked in confusion, "Uh, 'how many'? How many what?"

"How many enemies I just fought," Miles clarified as he climbed to his feet, trying to cover up his regret with a tone of annoyance. "I blacked out for a minute there, but by the look of this place, I'm assuming that I won."

Sounding concerned, Phin told him, "Er… Miles, there was no fight. At least, none I heard on comms. There was just some big noise and then I lost contact with you."

Now it was Miles' turn to be confused, but as he considered that he hadn't actually been the one to cause this destruction, he looked down in thought for a moment before he considered another possibility before he reported, "Activating scanners and tapping into Guardian Angel Protocol. Standby."

After saying it, Miles immediately proceeded to do just that, mentally turning on his mask's scanners and listening in on the police's surveillance systems over his comms. What he saw and heard, however, was beyond his imagination even if he'd considered the possibility before trying to confirm it.

With wide eyes, Miles restored contact with Phin and informed her, "Hell's Kitchen… it's gone, Phin. It's all gone."

As he'd expected, Phin responded in disbelief, "Wait, what? Miles, did you just say-?"

"All of Hell's Kitchen," Miles confirmed. "The bomb I went after… It wasn't the only one. Not by a long shot. The police are saying that the entire neighborhood just collapsed, all at once. They've lost contact with the Midtown North Precinct and a quarter of the 10th's territory as well. Hell's Kitchen just got blown off the map."

Still sounding like she couldn't process what she was hearing, Phin responded, "That- That's impossible!"

Suddenly having another concern, Miles ordered urgently, "Mason, get on my computer and bring up the 'Dying Flame Protocol'. It'll require your handprint for access."

While Phin was following Miles' new order, Miles' trained ears picked up the sound of something shifting behind him and he turned and activated his scanner to notice a pair of heat signatures trapped beneath the rubble. Moving quickly towards the survivors, Miles marked the strongest points of the structure they were crouched beneath and was careful not to disturb them as he extended his claws and began to tear through the stones. In a matter of moments, he'd created a hole large enough for a person to fit through and leaned his head down by the hole and told the people inside, a woman and her teenage daughter, "Over here! Stay calm and move towards me!"

It was a sign of the people's desperation that they barely even hesitated to obey Miles, both of them swiftly moving towards the hole before Miles stretched out his arms towards the mother and told her, "Hand me your daughter, then I'll get you!" He could see the woman freeze upon hearing that, clearly wary of handing over her child, especially to someone who looked as frightening as the Prowler, but Miles impatiently urged her, "Come on, unless you have a better option!"

Clearly recognizing the truth of Miles' statement, the woman gave her child one last nervous look before picking her up in her arms and helping her through the hole Miles had created, and he helped her through before immediately setting her down out of danger and reaching back for the mom, who gave herself much less thought than she had given her daughter as she reached out to take Miles' gauntleted hand and allowed him to pull her to safety.

Then, without waiting for any sort of thanks, Miles turned away from the crying and embracing family and jumped upwards to find other people who may need help, subconsciously heading back towards Dr. Brock's building as he did so.

Just then, he heard Phin speak to him again, saying, "It's some sort of… suit diagnostic? Is that right?"

"What does it say?" Miles asked.

"It says that all vital signs are at optimal levels," Phin answered. "Is this your suit's diagnostics? Wow, for a guy who was just in a bombing, you're in great shape!"

"My suit was built to withstand an earthquake, but I still wanted to be sure," Miles told her, not bothering to tell her whose suit the program was truly monitoring, though his mind calmed down significantly upon hearing the news. Still, he silently cursed himself for resorting to using the Dying Flame Protocol. He'd promised himself that he would never do so, even coded it specifically to Phin's biometrics instead of his own to try to prevent it, but the situation had been dire. And as a result, he got the knowledge that at least Gwen was alright despite being caught in the middle of this bombing (actually remarkably unharmed given the circumstances), but at the cost of making it extremely difficult to convince himself that he wasn't worrying about her.

But now wasn't the time to concern himself with that. People still needed help, and Miles knew that time was of the essence.

Getting Phin's attention again, Miles ordered, "Mason, deploy the spider-bots and all of Seraph Tech's drones. All of them, you understand? It's chaos out here, we need everyone we can get on the scene."

"Consider it done. We lost several Guardian towers with the neighborhood, but I'll have the drones relay the locations of wounded civilians to emergency services whenever they're not running rescue. But I'll only be able to get the ones above ground level. If you can find the ones who are buried, I'll hand over their locations as well."

"Consider it done," Miles repeated back at her, then deactivated his shoes and fell towards the ground as he reported, "Charging sonic cannon now."

A moment later, Miles hit what remained of the street beneath him in a three-point landing, his shoes absorbing the impact of his fall while he slammed his palm to the ground, and his gauntlet hummed with energy and sparked with purple electricity for a second before a shockwave emitted out of his hand in all directions, cracking the stone beneath him with how strong it was, and then Miles immediately launched back into the air while an underground map appeared on his map and he told Phin, "I have the seismic scan. Sending it to you now. Shouldn't have been strong enough to disturb any settled structures, but the white spots are bodies. Alive or dead, I can't confirm, but at least we know where they are now."

"You're a show-off, you know that, right?" Phin asked, though she sounded amused.

"You get a free pass for showing off when you're saving lives while doing it," Miles answered, somehow maintaining a completely serious expression as he said it.

Then, he got a chance to prove that point as his scanners helped him locate a group of about ten people buried beneath a large pile of stone that was barely kept up by only a few broken metal beams, but still forced them all to be pressed low to the ground. Several of them were lying still against the ground, probably injured, while the others moved around and tried to desperately search for some sort of exit.

Quickly determining that he wouldn't be able to dig his way around this one, Miles instead turned his body completely upside-down in the air, his head facing straight towards the rubble, and used his shoes to launch himself straight through the stone. His explosive arrival nearly made the whole place collapse and caused several people to scream, but Miles quickly reached up and grabbed onto the massive metal support beams with his hands and groaned as he used his augmented strength to lift the weight just high enough to allow the civilians a way out, albeit a very small one.

As the people stared in wonder at their inhuman savior, Miles told them, "Everyone get out! Help the wounded!" He was unsure of how long he could continue to hold up this much weight, even with his gauntlets amplifying his strength, but as the people began to obey him, Miles refused to allow himself to falter and let any of these people get hurt.

Once they were all clear, including the wounded civilians who hadn't been able to move on their own, Miles quickly scanned the area and located one more person who'd been knocked out and could've easily been mistaken for dead by anyone who couldn't see heat signatures as he could. But being unwilling to call anyone back to help him get them out, assuming any of them were even brave enough for such a suicide mission, Miles instead just grunted as he threw the metal pillars upwards as much as he could one final time, then speedily rushed forward in a blur of magenta light and grabbed onto the unconscious civilian and carried them out of the way, managing to slide them both out of the gap he'd created just a moment before it all fell down and collapsed the cavern behind them.

Setting the man down in the nearest safe place, Miles' attention was then drawn to the sound of someone whimpering in pain at the site of the next building over. Quickly jogging towards the source of the noise, Miles saw the problem. A man was laying on the ground with a heavy steel bar crushing one of his legs, but fortunately for him, a policeman was there with him and was trying rather unsuccessfully to lift the bar off of the man's leg while the man clung tightly to his arm in an attempt to alleviate the pain.

Quickly rushing forward, Miles called out, "Here! Let me help!"

As both men turned to look at the speaker, the policeman's eyes widened before he quickly released the steel bar - causing the trapped man to groan in pain again as the full weight of it was returned to his leg - and drew his pistol from his hip as he said, "Prowler! Stay where you are and put your hands on your head!"

"If you're gonna shoot me, go ahead and do it, but then get out of my way," Miles responded with a glare without stopping his approach.

His eyes wide in terror, the officer did nothing but back away as Miles approached him, clearly not wanting to anger the most dangerous man on the planet even if Miles wouldn't have really hurt him, and Miles fearlessly stepped right past him and leaned down to pull the steel bar off of the fallen man's leg with one hand and tossed it aside, then turned away again to leave, but the man reached out and grabbed the sleeve of Miles' jacket before he could leave, causing Miles to turn back towards him with a raised eyebrow, and the man winced in pain as he told him, "My leg… I can't feel my leg…"

His expression losing some of its intensity upon hearing the man's plight, Miles kneeled down and told the man regretfully, "I know. I'm sorry. This was my fault. But I swear to you, I will find whoever is responsible for this, and I will avenge your loss."

The man clenched his teeth and nodded gratefully, and Miles stood up again before turning to the policeman and telling him, "Help is on the way. Make sure this man is one of the first to get into the ambulances, or you're going to be hearing from me."

Looking terrified despite being the only one here visibly holding a weapon, the officer nodded in acceptance, and Miles gave him one last warning glare before rushing off in a blur of light to find and help more people.

Line Break

The sun had begun to climb in the sky by the time Miles left the area that had once been Hell's Kitchen behind. He'd done all he could, but had been forced to leave both because of the Prowler's dislike of operating in the daylight as well as the number of city officials that had now arrived there, such as emergency services and construction companies. Any other rescue work that could be done there would be left up to them, Seraph Tech's drones, and Spider-Woman, whom Miles had thankfully managed to avoid running into again during the cleanup.

As he walked back into his office at Seraph Technologies HQ, Miles pulled off his motorcycle jacket and looked towards Phin as he asked her, "Didn't I fire you?"

Turning to face him without smiling, Phin responded, "You only joke anymore when you're rattled. What happened? What was it like out there?"

Dropping down into his spinning desk chair and throwing his jacket over the armrest, Miles answered, "Honestly? My first thought was that the new program was acting up, because I couldn't believe my eyes. There's nothing worse than finding yourself in a nightmare and then figuring out that it's reality."

Phin looked at him sympathetically, then turned to look at the news playing on her computer screen and optimistically said, "Well, the good news is that we weren't the only two people in New York staying up all night for once. Actually, I don't imagine many people got much sleep last night."

"Except for the ones that won't be waking up again," Miles added darkly, looking at her screen as well.

"Buzzkill," Phin muttered to herself, though she knew that he was right. Then, changing the subject, she informed him, "Also, James Wesley placed a call to Fisk Construction last night, and the drones told me that they were the first construction team on the scene helping with cleanup in Hell's Kitchen. Fisk's club was destroyed like everything else in the neighborhood, and I'm sure it took quite a few FBI agents down with it, but Fisk himself and most of his FBI escort survived. Apparently they were out of the area at the time of the bombings."

Hearing that, Miles tilted his head in interest and noted, "Hmm. Convenient."

Quickly catching onto his meaning, Phin responded, "I know what you're thinking, but Fisk was already back in Hell's Kitchen during the bombings, and I'm sure he got injured. And his people were the first ones trying to clean up the mess, even before you woke up or the police arrived. Besides, all of his calls have been monitored and he only got out of prison a couple days ago while we've been dealing with this threat for weeks. He couldn't possibly have organized something as big as this without someone noticing."

Leaning back in his chair, Miles sighed and said, "Yeah, I know. I'm just… I don't know, we just need to figure this out. An entire neighborhood of the city fell apart on our watch, in an age where terrorism was practically nonexistent until last night. We need to do better."

"Yeah," Phin agreed, turning to look at her screen once again. After a few seconds, she then asked, "Hey, Miles? We didn't have a chance to think about it last night, but why was the Prowler told about this?"

Curious, Miles asked, "What do you mean?"

Gesturing at her monitor, Phin explained, "Last night, we got an anonymous warning about one of the bombs. Our servers are secure, so whoever sent it to us must've somehow known who they were contacting, specifically trying to get the Prowler's attention."

Rolling his chair over by her and looking at the message on Phin's screen that she had received last night, Miles shrugged and suggested, "Maybe they didn't know about there being more than one bomb? I mean, we didn't, and not to brag or anything, but I'd say we're not always completely incompetent."

"That's my point!" Phin pointed out. "The two of us are smart enough to be running a global tech giant while barely being legal adults, but someone somehow snuck hundreds of bombs into the same neighborhood of New York without us noticing? And that's another thing! Hell's Kitchen was specifically targeted and was destroyed with masterful precision. To hide something that big from the Prowler, someone must've somehow managed to keep it quiet for months. Anyone who can do that doesn't just slip up, even by just revealing a single bomb, on the last night of their operation."

Miles processed what she was saying for a moment, then said, "I agree that this seems like it was clearly a targeted attack. But to what end?"

"Maybe a desperate attempt to take out the most dangerous person on the planet?"

Phin suggested. Miles looked sideways at her, then asked, "You mean-?"

"Well, just think about it, Miles!" Phin cut him off insistently. "Someone deliberately sent you there, but if we're right and they knew about there being more bombs, maybe they thought it would be enough to kill you if you went there!"

Doubtful, Miles pointed out, "But then why not just put all the bombs in one place? Why bring down the whole neighborhood?"

"They couldn't have known where you were or if you'd reach the bomb in time, but maybe they figured that you'd at least get into Clinton before the timers went off," Phin proposed.

Shaking his head in doubt, Miles argued, "There's easier ways to plan a murder. I still don't think someone would blow up an entire neighborhood just to possibly kill someone, not even the Prowler. And why Hell's Kitchen specifically? How did they get ahold of so many bombs without anyone saying something? Who could've done something like this? Even desperate, there's not many criminals with the guts to commit mass murder on this scale. We have a whole bunch of new questions that need answers. But however long it takes, all I know is that I'm going to figure out those answers and avenge all the people who lost everything they had last night."

"But what if my theory's correct, Miles?" Phin asked him concernedly. "What if someone's trying to kill the Prowler?"

"Then they'd better be carrying something a whole lot stronger than a few hundred bombs," Miles responded confidently, then returned his attention to Phin's screen as he added, "Besides, there are some places that they couldn't possibly get to me, like here, where I spend most of my time these days out of costume. Do you have any idea how many millions of dollars I spent fortifying this place against all kinds of threats, even super-powered ones? Even Spider-Woman can't get in here now."

"Yeah, about that…" came a familiar voice from behind Miles, which made him freeze upon hearing it.

Of course, the one part of the building that he hadn't defended perfectly was the front door, which could be opened to anyone if you had the right clearance… Clearance that only people like himself or Phin possessed.

Bowing his head with a sigh of annoyance, Miles glared over at Phin and told her, "You're double fired."

However, Phin looked as surprised as Miles did, and her eyes widened as she looked back at Miles and responded, "Er… I actually didn't let her in."

His eyes narrowing at that information, Miles set it aside to worry about later and turned around to face the origin point of Gwen Stacy's voice, intending to tell her off for breaking into his office and very likely to unwillingly resume the argument they'd begun last night but then froze upon seeing her. She was wearing her Spider-Woman outfit, but also… not. Instead of the usual white suit he'd grown accustomed to, he found Gwen wearing an all-new suit that was almost all black.

In less than a second, numerous flailing explanations for this latest development passed through Miles' head, including that she'd created a new outfit to mourn the losses of all the people in Hell's Kitchen (unlikely, as she didn't have the funds for such a thing, especially such a quick job, and he also knew that dark times were when she usually tended to act brightest) and that she was in some way attempting to flatter him by copying his usual aesthetic. That second option was also unlikely, even if Miles had to catch himself before he allowed it to work. Gwen wasn't the type to model her appearance after someone else's, an ideal that she certainly would never sacrifice even in an attempt to get back in his good graces.

Besides, she knew that even if she succeeded in flattering him with such a gesture, he despised adulation and praise and frankly would always prefer her white costume. Just because it looked better, of course, being largely his own work. Though naturally he wished she'd wear something different so he wouldn't have that same thought every time he saw her. Although… now that she was wearing something different, he found himself feeling… miffed at the new outfit? No, that was ridiculous! It didn't matter what she wore! He wasn't even supposed to see her at all, so she could wear whatever she wanted! It was even preferable that she didn't wear the super-suit he'd made for her three years ago and tried (mostly in vain) to upgrade since then, or the yellow dress he'd bought her a year and five months ago that she'd been wearing at Fisk's party the other night…

¡Cállate, Miles! Miles mentally chided himself with annoyance, trying to return his full attention to Gwen herself. Unfortunately, it was difficult to make yourself not think about someone while you tried to focus on them, and even more difficult to maintain a neutral expression while you were at it. Still, Miles gave it his best effort as he looked Gwen over.

For a moment after Gwen revealed her presence, she stood frozen in place, like she was unsure of what to do next, but upon seeing Miles looking at her new outfit, she struck a pose with one hand on her hip and asked, "So, you like?"

Line Break

Gwen's new suit was different from her old one in several ways that most people would miss, but being an artist (mostly just in his practically-nonexistent spare time nowadays), Miles was not counted among those people. Instead, he noticed every little detail of the new outfit, many of which didn't exactly please him.

It was almost entirely made from the same sleek, black material, but it had a couple of details that Miles felt gave him ample reason to be concerned about what it was and where it had come from. For one, it included a short black jacket over the top part, with spikes on the shoulders. This fit with what Miles knew about Gwen's emo side, so by itself, this didn't concern him, but if the suit had created itself as Gwen claimed, then how had it known that about her? Also, more concerning were a few white lines on the front of the jacket, which may easily be dismissed as stylized legs on a spider, like the symbol that Spider-Man had once worn on his chest, but to Miles they looked more like they denoted the ribs of a skeleton being exposed.

A line that was somewhere between pink and red ran down the front of the suit's chest and wrapped around Gwen's left leg a few times before it ended at her foot. That same pink/red color filled the inside of Gwen's hood, which had mostly been made completely black on the outside as well except for some white at the very edge, which had been frayed into numerous spiked ends.

Beneath that, her mask was also almost entirely black. Even the eyes, which had once been reflective white lenses, were now nothing more than an empty, all-consuming abyss of nothingness, surrounded by a thin line of white where there had once been an expressive pink, which clearly existed for the sole purpose of letting one know where the eyes were simply so they could express emotions such as the suit's clear preference of a relentless glare, an expression that Miles thought was usually supposed to be left to him.

Ultimately, Miles' artistic side had to admit that the suit looked great. Amazing, even. But still it set him on edge for reasons he couldn't quite identify just yet, but he intended to. Assuming Gwen could stop bothering him while he was at it.

"I'm guessing you're following that old piece of advice that says you're supposed to avoid physical contact with your ex to avoid reawakening your suppressed feelings or whatever, but surely you see that this is a bit extreme, right?" Gwen asked as she sat in a single chair in the middle of the room, surrounded by a globe of blue holographic screens all around her, each one presenting a different reading.

Walking around her and grabbing one of the holographic screens out of the air to examine it, Miles absently responded, "Shut up, please."

However, quickly getting bored, Gwen looked off to the side of the room and noticed Miles' interrogation room, which was blocked off from them by glass walls and a glass door. Inside the room, she could see a man laying down on a table, not quite asleep as his eyes were clearly open but at least completely at ease as he lay there unmovingly.

"What's that?" Gwen asked, not understanding that the man inside the room was Miles' latest victim. "That room wasn't here last time I was here."

Following Gwen's gesture, Miles quickly thought up an excuse and answered without enthusiasm, "Oh, yeah, that. Well, remember how after Tony Stark disappeared, some of his people were looking for new jobs and came to work for me instead? Well, one of them, Quentin, helped me create a new program for psychological recovery. He calls it a Corrective Automated Localized Location Modulator, so this is the CALLM Room, where people go to… Well, to get CALLM-ed down. We designed a projector room that creates hyper-realistic illusions that we can program. When you're in there, you can't even tell that it's fake. Unfortunately, we could only build two of these rooms for now due to their cost. The other one's in Quentin's lab."

Looking at the heart monitor on the wall next to the door and watching the calm, steady heartbeat of the man inside the room with interest, Gwen asked, "Have you ever used it?"

Looking inside as well, Miles answered vaguely but honestly, "When the need arises. Really just when I need to think or I'm… frustrated. But for the most part, I just use it for guys like Ralph there. Helping them get in the right mindset, you know?"

Gwen hummed in appreciation of the device, thankfully not understanding the more sinister applications that Miles had determined for it, then turned to look back towards Phin and asked her, "So what were you guys talking about before I came in here?"

Sitting off to the side and watching in interest but still not participating as she ate from a bowl of jelly beans, Phin swallowed her latest mouthful and answered sarcastically, "Oh, you know, just wondering if the Yankees are gonna go all the way this year. What else? We were talking about how half the city got blown up last night."

Clearly familiar and comfortable with this kind of conversation, Gwen nodded in understanding and said, "Oh, yeah. Last night was a mess. I was surprised to hear that we were working on the same bombing case, though. At least, before I got reassigned. Do you guys have any suspicions as to who could've done it?"

"Well, we considered your 'reassignment', but we had to remove him as a suspect because apparently Phin thinks Fisk couldn't have possibly arranged a terrorist attack from prison," Miles said with clear dissatisfaction.

Getting defensive, Phin reminded him, "You agreed, Miles! We decided together that it was too big an operation for Fisk to have organized from a prison cell."

Shrugging, Gwen suggested, "Well, I could try talking to him. Or someone close to him who might know something, maybe someone in prison who would be willing to give up some of Willie's secrets. Like Murdock!"

Scoffing, Miles dropped the holographic screen he was holding, allowing it to float back to its regular place in the globe around Gwen, then grabbed another one and began to examine it as he said, "You can ask Murdock if you want, but somehow I doubt he'll tell you anything."

Upon hearing that, Gwen bowed her head in defeat and nodded with resigned agreement.

However, Phin was confused and asked, "Wait, why? Can't one of you guys convince Murdock to talk?"

Clearly having forgotten that most people, such as Phin, weren't close enough to Matt Murdock's old case to know what had happened a few years back as she and Miles did, and Gwen explained, "Oh, right. Well, a few years ago, when Matt Murdock got sent to Ryker's… Things got messy. About a minute after he arrived inside the building, the prison suffered a riot, a nasty one, the biggest they've ever seen. Apparently, just about every prisoner in the place figured that the Kingpin must have some kind of incriminating information on them and whatever gangs they ran with, information that the police would eventually extract from him, so hundreds of inmates, all from different groups… Well, let's just say they all ganged up to silence him. They weren't willing to go all the way and kill him, but, well…"

"The prisoners worked together to take over the prison, all just to get to Murdock," Miles explained, being much more blunt than Gwen. "When they had him, they dragged him into the prison's infirmary and began neutering him of his threat to them. Me and Gwen actually had to go to the prison to help shut down the riot, but by the time we found Murdock, the prisoners had already cut out his tongue, amputated his hands, and stabbed out his eyes. That last one didn't do them much good as he was already blind, but there you have it. The Kingpin could no longer snitch on them. But it doesn't matter, because we already accessed Fisk's assistant's phone at his party the other night. He's closer to Fisk than anyone, so if he didn't know anything-"

"Wait, you were at Fisk's party a couple nights ago?!" Gwen asked, sounding outraged.

Realizing his mistake too late, Miles froze in the middle of reading through the information on the screen in his hand, then said, "Did I say 'party'? I meant… smarty. You know, where people go to say… smart things." Regretting it immediately after he'd said it, Miles could feel the judgemental gazes of both Gwen and Phin on him, but he refused to look up and subject himself to their opinions.

Thankfully, Phin chose that moment to change the subject as she gestured towards Gwen's new suit and asked her, "So you say this thing… Climbed on you of its own free will and turned into a suit? And before that, it was just… goo?"

Turning exasperatedly away from Miles to face Phin, Gwen also tried to return to being professional as she answered, "Pretty much. Like I said, it was in Dr. Brock's lab, in this big safe, and at first it just looked like some sort of black slime. When I got close to it, it reacted to me and I thought it was some sort of chemical compound. But then, when the building collapsed and it got out, it crawled over to me while I was trapped and covered me up, fixed my wounds, and made itself into a new suit."

"Exactly how wounded were you?" Miles asked, looking at her curiously, but when Gwen looked back at him, he quickly looked back at the holographic screen in his hand and gestured to it while he added, "I mean, just so I can understand exactly how capable it is. Judging by this data, you seem completely fine, at least from a physical standpoint."

Gwen didn't answer for a moment, causing Miles to get the uncomfortable feeling that she was smirking beneath her mask, appreciative of Miles' concern, but even despite his recently revealed betrayal the other night, Gwen thankfully took pity on him and simply answered, "I was busted up pretty bad. Numerous cuts and bruises, a dislocated shoulder, and I think a broken leg too."

Trying to ignore the fresh wave of anger he felt at himself upon hearing that, Miles remained focused on the hologram in his hands, which he thankfully couldn't crush with a tense grip, and said, "Well, my specialty is mechanics, not chemistry, and this hologram is a schematic decomposer from our engineering department, but it should still be plenty good enough for this job, but I've so far been unable to figure out exactly what this new suit of yours is made of. The only thing I can tell so far is that it's definitely organic."

"Well, it doesn't seem bad. In fact, all it's been so far is incredibly helpful, so I guess we're done here, right?" Gwen asked as she stood up from her chair, causing the holograms to disappear from around her.

"Not just yet," Miles stopped her, holding up one of his hands so that one of his gauntlets unfolded to cover it, then flicked his hand so that the claws extended slightly as he said, "Much as I hate to damage any work of art, I have one more idea. If I can collect a sample, maybe I can give it a closer look with a microscope."

Gwen looked at his claws hesitantly for a moment, but finally looked back up at Miles and gave him a silent nod, clearly trusting that he knew what he was doing and wouldn't hurt her, a sign of trust that Miles tried his best to ignore. Nodding to her in acceptance, Miles stepped forward and placed one hand on Gwen's shoulder to steady her while he lowered one of the claws on his other hand towards a spot on her arm, intending to tear away and scoop up a small piece of the suit covering it.

However, before he could do so properly, the part of the suit next to his finger suddenly seemed to turn fluid, like it became some sort of sentient ink, and shot out to strike Miles in the chest, flattening itself into a flat surface where it impacted with him and pushing him off his feet and sending him flying backwards across the room. Through his shock at the unexpected attack, Miles heard both Gwen and Phin yell, "Miles!" in concern for him, but fortunately Miles had the sense of mind to will his mask to form over his face before he crashed back to the floor in a heap, sliding to a stop against the glass wall behind him.

His mask had protected his head from injury, but Miles still took a minute to regain his bearings after the strike he just received, and he heard two pairs of footsteps rush over to him then felt a pair of hands grab each of his arms and help pull him back to his feet. Taking his mask back off, Miles shook Gwen and Phin's hands off of him and excused them, "I'm fine, I'm fine."

Her face full of worry, Gwen looked Miles over and apologized, "I'm so sorry, Miles, I don't know what happened! I promise I didn't-"

Waving her off, Miles responded, "It's okay, I know." Then, turning to her and looking over her suit for a moment with a new perspective dawning in his mind, Miles reached out to tentatively grab Gwen's wrist and admired the fabric as he noted, "Huh. It defended you."

"Actually, Miles, I think it defended itself," Phin pointed out, but Miles ignored her as he looked up and noticed something else. Tilting his head in wonder, Miles reached out towards Gwen's face before he stopped himself and instead touched his own face as an example as he asked her, "Hey, Gwen, what happened to your mask?"

Seeming confused, Gwen asked, "What?" and reached up to touch her own face before her eyes widened in realization at the same thing that Miles had just noticed; her hood had fallen off of her head and her mask was completely gone from her face, loosing her blond hair and revealing her captivating blue eyes to Miles' view. Even more interesting, however, was that she wasn't holding her mask in her hands like she normally would be, and she looked completely at a loss for where it could've gone.

Once she'd recovered from her own confusion, Gwen looked away in thought for a minute before she backed away from Miles and told him, "Let me try something real quick."

Miles watched in scientific intrigue as Gwen stood in place for a moment, and then the neck of her suit stretched itself upwards fluidly to cover her face again, followed by her hood pulling itself back over her head, and then Spider-Woman was once again wearing her mask like before.

Fascinated, Miles leaned in and observed, "Even more defensive capabilities. Unhindered shape manipulation on instinct and at will. You can put on and take off your mask with just a thought, probably even the whole suit! With practice, you could probably turn the suit into any tool or weapon you could imagine as well!"

Removing her mask again and smirking at Miles, Gwen asked, "You mean I finally get a fancy suit? I can do the same mask thing you do, but even cooler? And any tool I want? Wow! Impressed yet, Miles?"

"Very much so," Miles answered, leaning forward to try to examine the suit's composition more closely, his mind already running through the potential applications of such a tool. If he could somehow get a hold of this thing, whatever it was, and apply it to his Prowler tech…

Or better yet, what if he didn't? With all that he'd seen this thing could do, he could use it himself, sure. Or he could keep it somewhere that it could do more good. After all, last night had been eye-opening, but apparently Miles hadn't received the worst of it. He had plenty of defensive capabilities for himself already, clearly, so perhaps the sludge would be of more use… elsewhere.

After a moment, however, Miles was abruptly broken from these thoughts as Phin's voice suddenly yelled out, "Guys!"

Both himself and Gwen turning to look at Phin, Miles asked, "Yes?"

Looking disturbed, Phin told them, "Look, guys, you can talk shop on the… whatever it is all you want, but can we-"

Returning to his usual professional mindset, Miles quickly thought up a solution to one of their issues that he'd noticed and cut Phin off as he suggested, "Let's call it the 'symbiote'. My scans indicated that whatever it is, it's staying with Gwen to help her and help itself at the same time, all the signs of a symbiotic relationship. It probably likes her because she's the strongest… Well, one of the strongest beings on the planet. It's found an optimal partner to bond with."

Seeming confused, Phin said, "Okay, fine, but what do we do with it now? Is this 'bond' going to have any downsides? Giving this thing a name doesn't help us figure out what it is or where it came from."

"As far as I can tell, it's perfectly fine," Miles answered. "All it seems to do is help Gwen, so I see no reason why she shouldn't hold onto it."

Phin still looked rebellious, but Miles left no room for argument. He knew that holding onto the symbiote would be the best thing for Gwen. Her body had been broken last night, and Miles had been unable to do anything about it because of his duties as the Prowler. Still, he'd resorted to using his secret program that allowed him to monitor Gwen's vitals, the very existence of which was clear regression in his attempts to stay away from Gwen.

The symbiote, however, made Gwen stronger, more versatile, and could heal all of her injuries in seconds. If she had it, maybe Miles could stop concerning himself with her wellbeing beyond doing what was best for her, even if she couldn't understand or accept it, and staying away from her. Which, speaking of…

His eyes narrowing as he suddenly realized that Gwen had now overstayed her welcome, Miles abruptly turned to walk out of his office as he called behind himself, "Well, that's that dealt with! Gwen, feel free to let yourself out whenever you're ready, I need to get back to saving the world in two different lives. Phin, I'll be downstairs if you need me. But don't need me."

Gwen POV

Watching Miles excuse himself quite suddenly, Gwen watched him go for a moment before she called after him, "Hey, wait, Miles, I actually think we should-"

However, Miles pretended not to hear Gwen and swiftly exited the room before closing the door behind himself while slamming the door shut.

"... talk," Gwen finished somewhat lamely after he'd gone, despite knowing that even if he had heard the last part of that sentence, he would've ignored it just like the rest of what she'd said. In the last year, she'd gotten really good at hiding how much Miles' treatment of her hurt her, but Gwen could never quite convince herself of the same thing.

Still, something about this time felt a bit different. Maybe it was the way that he so obviously and deliberately blew her off, unlike the previous times when he just avoided her, but for once, instead of feeling primarily sadness as Miles went out of his way to stay away from her, Gwen felt angry.

He doesn't want to make time for me, Gwen thought. Fine. I don't need him. I have everything I need.

But then, Gwen knew that that wasn't quite true. She'd always needed Miles, even before she'd known it. Her job (her first job, that was, being a superhero) was perhaps the most taxing job on the planet, in ways that most people couldn't understand. But Miles understood. He always had, and he'd helped Gwen through more tough times than she could count. He hadn't even been there for her first major trial, losing Peter Parker, her best friend for years, but Miles had done everything he could to ease that burden for her, to relieve her lingering feelings of guilt. Gwen had always, always needed someone like Miles in her life. He was the best thing that ever could've happened to her.

But that was then, Gwen thought to herself. Now, what's he good for? Only heartache. Maybe she needed him once, but perhaps not anymore. After all, with power like what the symbiote gave her, Gwen didn't ever have to feel hurt again. Not if she chose it.

But was that really a choice that Gwen wanted to make? Hadn't she been thinking just yesterday that she would rather go through a lifetime of pain than… Something. Huh, that's weird, Gwen thought. Why can't I remember? Maybe I hit my head. Yes, that must be it.

Gwen was broken from her personal thoughts as Phin suddenly spoke up from behind her, saying, "He's damaged, you know. I don't know what to do with him."

Turning to face her, Gwen asked, "Miles?" As Phin nodded, Gwen scoffed and glared at the office door as she said, "Well, next time you see him, give him the news that he's far from being the only one. What happened in Jersey left scars on the whole world, but of course Miles decides that he has to be dramatic and make his problems seem like the biggest ones."

Phin was silent for a second, then asked, "What happened that day? I didn't help with… all this back then, and no one knows the full story. Except for you and Miles, of course, but he'll never talk about Jersey unless he's threatening someone. I mean, if you don't mind telling me… But if it's too painful, I understand-"

Looking down sadly and holding up a hand to stop her, Gwen said, "No, it- It's okay. You deserve to know. Just… Can I sit down?"

Nodding enthusiastically, Phin hurried and rushed across the room to grab her desk chair as well as Miles' before she dragged them both together facing one another and gestured for Gwen to sit down in one of them.

Taking her seat, Gwen tried to determine the best starting place for the story and finally began, "All right, so you know it happened just over a year ago. Of course you do, everyone does. But no one knows what it was like for us. Back then it was just me and him. Spider-Woman and the Prowler, the famous vigilante superhero duo of New York. Miles had inherited several million dollars a few years before, but he'd invested most of it into his start-up company, Seraph Tech, which you also know, as you were actually his first employee. But anyway, we had no income yet back then, so all our toys were whatever Miles could scrounge up for us from his uncle's old stashes."

Nodding in understanding, Phin said, "Aaron Davis. The original Prowler."

"That's right," Gwen acknowledged with a nod. "He wasn't the best guy for most of the time I knew him… but he sacrificed himself to take down one of the worst supervillains I ever encountered. But his tech was amazing. It was like the stuff Miles creates now, but all from his own head. Not just the original Prowler, but also the original genius behind it, and we used his old tech to try to protect the city and, when necessary, the world, from threats. And for a long time, we were actually really good at it."

"But something went wrong," Phin predicted.

However, surprisingly, Gwen shook her head and responded, "Actually, no. Things were going right, for once, for both of us. I was lined up to graduate at the top of my police training class. Miles was set to start up a successful company straight out of high school, and even had high recommendations from the federal government, as he'd submitted them with the most sophisticated model for a new super-prison almost two years prior. And between that prison and the two of us, the city was actually quieter than normal, crime-wise. So I… decided it was safe to take a short field trip, leave the city for a while so I could finish my training at my dad's old Police Academy. And the day I got back…"

Gwen trailed off there, not wanting to go on, and looked up into Phin's eyes as she told her, "You know the worst part about wearing a mask to be a superhero? Everyone forgets that there's someone beneath it. Your mask becomes your face, and you seem untouchable to everyone who doesn't see you go home every night and put ice on your bruises, or bandages on your cuts. If a cop gets shot, they go into the hospital and everyone hears on the news about the injury they suffered and how it happened. And a lot of people think it's easier for superheroes, that we get to be anonymous beneath a mask, but I'm not so sure. Because we don't get a hospital. The news broadcasters don't ask people to pray for us to recover. We get a self-applied first-aid kit, and nights spent sleeping uncomfortably so our families don't think something's wrong and find our blood on our bed sheets in the morning, spilling through our dirtied bandages. No one gets how hard it is to be invincible, to keep up that illusion of being alright while we're screaming on the inside, and one day we're all bound to just snap-"

"Gwen, Gwen," Phin suddenly cut her off, and Gwen stopped speaking as she realized that she had been rambling, leaving her hyperventilating as she'd gotten too caught up in talking to Phin. Still, Phin looked sympathetic as she said, "Gwen, are you sure you want to talk about this? Because you don't have to if you don't feel ready. I know why Miles never wanted to tell me about it, and you don't have to either. I know you're both going through something similar from that day."

But Gwen did want to talk about it. She recognized that it had actually felt good to get some of her traumatized thoughts out of herself, and so she just took a deep breath to calm herself as she said, "No, I want to do this. Maybe just… Let me start at the beginning. It started that morning, right after I got back from the Academy…"

A/N: So that concludes yet another chapter, and before everyone starts asking, I just want to tell you all that the next chapter will begin with a flashback including a complete recap of the Jersey incident, continuing the story that Gwen is currently telling just as it happened a year ago, so get excited for that, everyone who's been wanting to hear about it in greater detail! Also, an image of Gwen's new outfits after these three years is now available on AO3 for anyone who wants a visual aid, on this chapter of the story, so enjoy!