Chapter 9: Valentine's Day

I Don't Own Ben 10 or Any of the Respective Characters, The Rights Belong to Man of Action Studios and Cartoon Network

Author's Note:

* Hello everyone and welcome to Chapter 9 of CWN Version II! This is the second chapter that I was talking about in the Author's Note for Chapter 8. I hope you guys enjoy this one!

Ben

Wednesday, February 14th, 2018

The Tennyson House

Okay, just a quick question. Do you actually like Valentine's Day? Because I don't like Valentine's Day, like at all. In fact, I would say that I hate Valentine's Day. I will be honest and say that at one point, I liked the idea of Valentine's Day. But that was before Julie and before she... well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

So, we had the day off school for Valentine's Day and I was downstairs in the basement playing video games. Or at least I was until Mom came downstairs to lay the news on me.

"Ben?" she asked. "Honey?"

I paused my game and turned to look at her.

"Yes, Mom?" I responded.

"You are aware that today is Valentine's Day, right?"

Yeah, as if I need to be reminded what fucking day it is.

"Yes," I replied as I tried my best to mask the annoyance in my voice. "Why?"

"How come you aren't out doing anything?"

"Um, I don't have a girlfriend anymore, Mom. I have no reason to go out and do anything."

As rude as it was, I turned back to my game as if this conversation was over.

"Hey, don't look away from me when we're having a conversation!" she said as she walked in front of the coffee table, stopping in front of the T.V. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Well, you're here now, so...

I sighed.

"Sure, let's talk about it."

"Okay. You know that you don't need a girlfriend in order to go out on Valentine's Day, right? You can go out with your friends. Valentine's Day doesn't have to be about love, it can be about spending time with your friends."

"I believe that Ken is out with his girlfriend. The guys are out doing whatever—something about a movie and hitting the arcade—I wasn't invited. I have a feeling that they think my negative energy will kill the atmosphere."

And in response, of all the things that she could have done, she just smirked.

"I think they're right."

I just stared back at her.

"Thanks, Mom. You're really helping me."

She sighed.

"Look, I know that breakups suck, but it's been almost been two months. At some point, you just need to let it go and move on."

Move on. Move on?

"It's not that simple."

"How come?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You keep saying that. I can't help you if you don't tell me what happened."

"I can't move on so quickly. You wouldn't understand."

"Try me. Go ahead. I'm here and I'll listen."

"I don't want to talk about it."

Instead of trying to prod me some more, she just stared at me before caving in.

"Alright, if that's what you really want. I'll leave you alone."

"Thank you."

She walked away and I unpaused my game ready to continue with my game, when I heard her speak again.

"Oh, Ben? I almost forgot—"

I paused again and turned my head back to look at her.

"Your father and I are going out for date night and staying at a hotel. You'll have the house to yourself."

She turned to leave and she was about to go up the stairs, but I got up from the couch to follow her.

"You're just going out for the night and leaving me here?"

She nodded.

"But you can't do that! I fucking hate Valentine's Day!"

Upon my saying that, Mom instantly frowned in response.

"Benjamin Tennyson, don't you talk like that! For as long as you will live under this roof, that kind of language isn't allowed."

I let out an annoyed sigh.

"Yes, mother."

After that brief exchange, she sighed as well.

"Well, sorry Benjamin, but you can't stop your father and I from going out for some one-on-one time. And the way that you've been giving everyone the cold shoulder since your break up, I would have assumed that you'd want to be alone."

I just stared at her as she stood there on the stairs.

"And if you're going to act like a child, then I'll treat you like a child."

And with that, she turned back around and walked back up the rest of the stairs. Once she was gone, I let out a sigh as I walked back over to the couch. But I didn't sit back down. Instead, I sat down with my back to the couch, drew my knees to my chest, folded my arms across my knees and then rested my face on my arms.

Great job, Ben. Why couldn't you just admit that you're salty that everyone else gets love while you get dealt a loveless life after you got dumped? It probably wouldn't have changed this interaction, but at least you would have been honest and she'd know that you're not just acting like a baby. You're such a jackass.

A Few Hours Later

So, my parents had left the house about an hour and a half ago. Before they had left, Mom told me that I was responsible for getting myself up tomorrow morning and getting to school on time. Whatever. Once they were gone, I decided to just hang out in the living room for a little bit and watch T.V. Maybe I'd order a pizza for dinner. Well, I'm sitting there watching T.V. and I hear a knock at the door. Being confused, I mute the T.V. and shot an uncertain glance at the front door.

I wasn't expecting company...

I got up from the couch and walked over to the window next the door.

It has to be someone that I know...

I ever-so-slightly bent the blinds down to peek out and I saw Gwen, standing out on the stoop. I'm not sure if she saw me or not, I pulled away from the window pretty quickly. I let out a sigh.

What is she doing here?

I wasn't annoyed by her coming here or anything like that, I was just extremely confused. I finally decided to just approach the front door and open it. I unlocked the door and opened it, once again revealing her standing out on the stoop, wearing perfectly normal day clothes. She also had her hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"Hey, Ben!" she greeted me in her usual cheery tone.

"Um, what exactly are you doing here?" I asked with confusion.

"Well, I wasn't doing anything tonight. I have no one to spend the day with and my parents went out for dinner. So, I thought I'd come see you for a while. I'll cook you dinner, we can watch a movie and maybe play a board game."

The first thing that came to my mind was the thought that even though Mom decided to leave me home alone tonight, she still didn't trust me to be home alone. So, she probably called Gwen and asked her to come over to keep an eye on me.

"God damn it, Mom." I muttered under my breath.

Gwen's cheery look changed to that of a confused one.

"Excuse me?"

I shook my head.

"Nothing, forget it." I said as I stood aside. "You wanna hang out? Fine, come on in. I won't stop you."

She walked in and I turned to face her as I shut the door behind her.

"So, what's first?"

"I'll cook dinner first. I'm thinking spaghetti. Why don't you go back into the living room and put on a movie while you wait?"

She turned away from me and walked further into the kitchen.

"What other choice do I have?" I said to myself.

I walked back into the living room and crouched down in front of the entertainment center. I then opened up the bottom right cupboard and dug through the DVDs, trying to decide what I wanted to watch. I eventually settled on the first Spider-Man movie directed by Sam Raimi. I'd seen the movie more times than I could count, but it never got old for me. I put it in the DVD player and sat back down to start the movie while I waited.

Forty Five Minutes Later

So, cut to almost an hour later, she came into the living room to tell me that dinner was ready.

"Hey, dinner's ready."

"'Kay.".

"Do you want help me set the table or...?"

"When Mom and Dad are here, we usually just eat in here."

She was silent for a few seconds.

"Normally at my house, we eat at the dinner table in the kitchen—"

Well, this isn't your house. Also, that makes complete sense. Your mother is a very controlling woman who cares way too much about rules and regulations.

Before I could say anything, she finished speaking.

"—but I really don't want to cause a confrontation with you, so just this once, I'll allow it."

So, before we got our food, she asked me where the towel closet was. I told her that it was the first door on the left in our hallway. She went to get a towel from the closet and returned to the living room to put it down on the floor so that we wouldn't get food or drip sauce onto the carpet.

After doing that, we went into the kitchen to get our plates. We returned to the living room and sat down on the towel. Due to how small the towel was, she and I had to sit pretty close to each other, so close that our legs grazed against each other, but neither of us voiced an issue with it. As we dug in, she spoke up in between forkfuls of spaghetti.

"So, what movie did you pick out?"

"Um, the first Spider-Man movie directed by Sam Raimi, from 2002."

What she said next surprised me.

"Well, could you rewind it?"

I turned to look at her.

"I thought you didn't like super hero movies?"

"Well, they're not my thing, but if this is the movie you picked then I would at least like to know what's going on."

I was still surprised and frankly, maybe just a little ticked off, seeing as I had just reached the part of the movie where the Green Goblin attacks the Unity Day Festival. And you know, that's just about halfway through the movie. But against my better judgement, I did as she asked. Once the movie was back at the opening logos, she spoke again.

"Thank you."

"Mmm-hmm."

Half An Hour Later

Thirty minutes had passed and even though it surprised me, Gwen seemed to be paying pretty close attention to the movie. After we finished eating, I went into the kitchen with her to help her wash the dishes. I was washing my plate, along with the small plate that I kept my garlic bread on. Gwen did the same, washing both of her plates. I was done washing my plate with soap and I was ready to pass it to Gwen, so she could rinse it off.

As I passed it to her and she took it, our hands touched. We both looked up at each other, not taking our hands off of one another's hands. She stared at me and I stared at her. Our hands continued to touch uninterrupted. Eventually, after staring at her for several more seconds, I took my hand away from hers.

"Sorry." I said as I looked away.

As I started washing my other plate, I could sense that Gwen was staring at me. So, I looked a bit to my left. I was right. She was staring at me. But it wasn't an angry stare. She was just smirking at me as she continued to stare. After a second or two, she chuckled.

"It's okay." She simply replied.

Seventy Minutes Later

After a little more than an hour, the movie had finished. And much to my surprise, she seemed to have enjoyed it. Well, to a certain extent, at least. We were now just sitting here in silence as the credits rolled and it took a minute or two, but she eventually spoke.

"Um, wow. How have I never seen this?"

I turned to look at her before I spoke in a nervous tone.

"So, did you like it?"

She turned to look back at me.

"Well, I'm not sure I would compare it to other movies, but for it being the first super hero movie that I've ever seen, that was actually pretty good."

Wow, she actually liked it.

I cleared my throat.

"Oh! Well, I'm glad you liked it."

She nodded.

"Yeah. Um, I think I have a little bit of an understanding on why you like these movies so much."

I decided to prod her a little bit and see if I could get her to voice more of her opinion on the movie.

"Was there anything that you didn't like about the movie?"

She shook her head.

"No. Well, actually, some of the humor and dialogue was a little bit cheesy, but I guess it comes with the time that the movie was made in. And I imagine that there's a certain charm to it."

Huh, she kind of gets it.

However, then she said something that actually surprised me.

"The movie honestly impresses me even more when you take into account that the hero and his villain are all original characters. It's all original!"

I looked at her with a dumbfounded expression and she looked back at me with confusion.

"What?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you mean, 'what do I mean'?".

I sighed.

"You said that it's all original. What do you mean by that?"

"Well, the hero and the villain, you've never seen this any place else. It was all made for this movie, right?"

She's joking with me, right?

When she didn't tell me that she was just kidding (like I was hoping she would), I was forced to shake my head.

"No, didn't you see the bit at the beginning where it acknowledged Stan Lee and Steve Ditko?"

"Well yeah, but I thought that was just giving credit to the people who created them?"

"That is what was happening. But Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created these characters over fifty years ago. They were created solely for the comics back then."

Now she looked as if it were her turn to be surprised.

"There are Spider-Man comic books?"

I once again looked back at her with shock, but only for a second or two.

"Come with me."

I then grabbed her and pulled her up from the couch. With her in tow, I cut through the kitchen hallway and down the basement stairs, turning on the lights as I did.

"Um, what are we doing?" she asked with confusion.

"You'll see." I replied as I guided us toward my boxes of comic books.

As we passed the couch, I motioned for her to sit down there. Once she had sat down, I grabbed one of the boxes from the corner and carried it over to the coffee table, struggling a bit as I did, which Gwen took notice of.

"Are those boxes heavy?"

"A little bit." I nodded.

I took the top off of the box and sat it down next to the box itself. As I did this, Gwen got up and began looking through the comics. I didn't get annoyed with her this time, because I wanted to show her these and she was already keeping them in order like I asked. So, I'd be wasting my breath at this point.

"So, Spider-Man first appeared in 1962's Amazing Fantasy #15, which is what the first half hour of the movie or so is based off of. However, not everything was the same, as they added some stuff for the movie and dropped some stuff from the comic. Like, the Green Goblin's origin story didn't happen at the same time as Peter's origin story. The Green Goblin didn't even debut until two years after Spider-Man's first book! And he didn't get that glider until later, either."

Gwen nodded without a word as she continued looking through the comics, just to let me know that she was listening. So, I continued.

"Also, Uncle Ben's death happens in pretty much the same way in the comic, teaching Peter the whole great power, great responsibility thing. The two things that they changed from the movie was that in the book, Uncle Ben doesn't drive Peter anywhere and he isn't actually the one to say, 'with great power comes great responsibility', that was actually in a yellow text box."

She turned to look at me.

"Uncle Ben didn't actually say that? I thought he would have!"

I shook my head.

"These movies make you think a lot of things. Like, in the comics, Peter can't shoot webbing from his hands, he had to make web shooters for that."

"Web shooters? The spider didn't give him the ability to do that?"

"Not in the comics, no. Also, almost everything about the high school setting is inaccurate. For one, Peter doesn't meet Harry and Mary Jane until he starts college. Mary Jane didn't even appear until 1965 and her full appearance took another year after that. And she wasn't Peter's first love."

"She wasn't?"

"No, his first real love was a girl named Gwen Stacy."

"Her name was Gwen? That's a little interesting."

Obviously because that's your name, too.

"Uh-huh."

"Why wasn't she in the movie, instead of Mary Jane?"

I shrugged.

"Maybe they just wanted to do a modern take of Spider-Man."

"Well, what happened to her? Did she and Peter break up?"

I shook my head.

"No. The Green Goblin threw her off of the George Washington Bridge. And the whiplash from Peter's webbing snapped her neck."

Her eyes widened as I said that.

"Wow. That's um, dark."

I nodded.

"Yeah. And she's pretty much stayed dead ever since."

She turned back to the comic books.

"And these comics have been around since like, 1962, you said?"

"Well, his debut issue came out in 1962, but his solo comic, Amazing Spider-Man didn't come out until a year later. And that book has ran for—"

I pulled out my phone and opened Google Chrome just to quick check this.

"—795 issues and counting."

I just barely noticed her eyes widen again.

"Wow."

One Hour Later

Gwen and I kept talking about comics (well, I did most of the talking while she listened) for the next hour, until she decided that it was probably time for her to go. I walked with her back upstairs and once we got to the door, I was going to say goodbye just like normal, but she surprised me instead. She turned and gently kissed me on the cheek.

"What the—!"

She didn't allow me to finish, she just pulled away again and spoke.

"Look, I know that this Julie girl must have really hurt you, but at some point you need to learn to let go. And if she's making you feel like this then she probably never deserved you in the first place."

I didn't say anything in response, I just thought about that. Once she saw that I wasn't going to reply, she sighed.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Ben." she said. "Thank you for a fun evening."

"You, too." I said as she opened the door. "No problem."

Then she was gone. I locked the door behind her and went to my room. I probably wasn't going to be staying up much longer. I was getting out my pajama pants and a long sleeved shirt to wear to bed when I felt my phone vibrate from in my pocket. I reached into my pocket and took it out. I turned the screen on to see that Gwen had texted me.

Really? We just saw each other!

Regardless, I put in my passcode so I could read her text.

Oh, by the way, I meant to tell you. While I may not have understood everything you were talking about, I don't think I've ever seen you speak so passionately about something before, like you were when we were talking about comic stuff tonight. I like this side of you much more than the current mood you're putting on.

- Gwen

I kept looking at the text and thought about what she said. And for once, I found myself smiling again.

Maybe she's right. Maybe Julie didn't deserve me after all.

Author's Note:

* And that's it for this chapter! I hope you guys enjoyed.

* So, how did I do with this version of this chapter? Some of you may notice a distinct lack of Ben and Gwen sleeping together in this chapter. Well, I think it would be obvious that I would cut that part. I recall one of you saying that it happened because "they were in love", but it obviously wasn't for that reason. But if that's what you want to think, I have no place in saying otherwise.

* Anyway, that's all I had to talk about. Please, let me know your thoughts about anything that comes to your mind in a review if you want or if you'd rather do a PM, that's okay, too. Anyway, that's all I got. That's going to do it for me, so have a fantastic day and bye.

Next Chapter: Ben and Gwen's World History class takes a field trip to the Bellwood Museum of Natural History.