"I want you to think of this place as your home away from home."
Gwen could still hear Jessica saying those words when she had been brought to the giant advanced city that was Nueva York. How she had said it with such kindness as Gwen first laid eyes on the 'City of the Future… Today!'.
"And maybe… it will just be a home."
She'd said that almost as an afterthought. As something that had suddenly occurred to her. And Gwen had been so consumed by everything that had happened to her that she never questioned it. Never wondered how many people Jessica had said those words too. How it was so perfect that it had to be scripted.
The memory made her shudder, feeling dirty. Not a dusty feeling either. Slimy. Grungy. Like she hadn't showered in three weeks and her hair was so coated in oil while her scalp itched terribly, a thousand little pimples hidden just under the strands.
Gwen hated that she felt that way about the memory.
Hated also that she wished for it to go back to a pleasant memory, now that she truly realized how brainwashed she had been.
"You okay luv?" Hobie asked as he closed up the portal.
"Yeah," she lied.
Hobie obviously didn't believe her. "What's wrong?"
She opened her mouth to deny there was a problem only to snap it shut. She wasn't going to lie to him. Not anymore. "Just… terrified that I'm going to slip back into believing their lies."
"Aye, I can see that. Always more comforting to be the good little puppet. Strings might make ya dance around a certain way but they also let you feel free. Because if you are their puppet then that means ya don't have ta think for yourself. Can blame them for all the things you do."
"…yeah," Gwen said before taking a deep breath. "Okay… okay, I'm good. Let's go find Miles." She fired off a webline, leaping off the building before it even latched onto a flagpole, feeling the wind rising along her body. It felt good to get back to webslinging… even better that she was webslinging for the right reasons. Not chasing after Miles to tell him that he needed to let his dad die. Not chasing after villains who she know realized half the time were just as scared and confused as she had been when she had ended up in Miles' world.
'What would have happened if someone like Miguel had found me in Miles' world?' she thought to herself. 'Someone who saw me as a threat and didn't want to listen to me try and explain why I was there?' She suddenly imagined his version of Iron Man or Thor deciding to attack first and ask questions later. Her trying to desperately explain that she had no idea where she was but she wasn't a threat only for them to attack her. Slam her down on the ground and call her a criminal. Toss her in a cell…
"What's wrong?" Hobie asked as he moved to swing next to her.
"Just… just wondering how many of the people we tossed into cells were innocent," Gwen admitted. "I didn't ever think about it. Just assumed they must be villains because they were doing villainous things. But when I ended up in Miles' world I lied about who I was. I broke into his school… I hacked files. I stole clothing. I stole MONEY, Hobie. I never even thought about returning it. Some of the villains… they appeared on a new world and we were on them instantly. We didn't even give them a chance to talk."
"…yeah, that bugged me too," Hobie admitted. "But most of them… they were threats. As much as I hate O'Hara and what he's been doing… he was good about doing his research on the people we brought in."
"But how can we be sure that he did?"
"Know what you're gonna say to the little Spider when we find him?"
Gwen frowned at the clear change in subject but decided not to call him out on it. She had no right to point out someone wanting to avoid talking about a touchy topic. "Not call him Little Spider for one." She sighed as they both landed on a skyscraper, looking over Nueva York. "I… I don't know."
"You realize that if he is awake… he might not want to talk to you."
"…I know," she admitted.
She thought of all the dreams she'd had when she was all alone in the dark, Hobie off patrolling London and Jessica having told her that she had to take some time off. The moments where she had no one to hide from but herself… and thus couldn't hide at all. And the daydreams came of a better life. A happier life. Her going to Miles and telling him that she had figured out how not to glitch so she could visit him whenever he wanted. Maybe… maybe go back to his school? It seemed so wonderful and nice and she would think about what her focuses would be. Maybe actually go to college. She was willing to bet she could get a scholarship. Her and Miles could go together, helping each other out both in terms of their education and in terms of super heroics.
Maybe… maybe get an apartment. Split the bills. She could play in coffee shops and he could sell his art online. She bet there would be a ton of people that would want to buy his stuff.
'And after…' she thought before pushing that thought away, jaw clenched so hard it hurt. She forced herself not to think of it all. The dates. A bended knee and a diamond. A white dress. A house and children with her nose and his curly hair…
But no. That would never come to be. Even assuming that Miles would live (and at that point Gwen was trying VERY hard not to think about Miles as a vegetable, forced to spend the rest of his days hooked to a thousand machines), assuming that he was able to think and talk and actually interact with people again… why would he ever want to talk to her again?
'You just clung to the train as Miguel said he didn't deserve to be Spider-Man,' she thought bitterly. 'You love him and you didn't have the guts to fight for him because you cared more about a man who would toss you aside if it meant 'preserving a canon event' than Miles… who was going to dedicate his entire life to finding a way back to you.' She grit her teeth as she fired off another webline. 'You don't deserve him. You never did.'
"Hey, none of that," Hobie said as he moved next to her once more. "Not sure what you are dwelling on but now isn't the time. Though, if I had to guess I'd say it was a certain black and red spider?"
"He isn't going to want my help," Gwen said. "He's just as likely to punch me as he is to tell me to piss off."
"Nah, not Miles," Hobie said. "That's why you're lucky… boy cares for you."
"He did care for me, Hobie. And I took all that respect he had for me… that faith… that trust… and I stomped on it." She glanced at him. "Tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that in the last 24 hours YOU didn't do more for him than I did."
Hobie… was silent.
"Yeah," Gwen muttered. "But don't worry… I'm not running away. I'm going to get him out of here so he doesn't get hurt by Chase and his Avengers. And then I'll let him scream at me and tell me off. And… and I'll leave him alone. I won't be clingy girl who pleads with him to listen to her or who constantly hangs out in the background, watching and making this awkward because she can't take the hint. I'll leave him be and… and…"
'And go off somewhere to die, alone.'
She didn't say those words.
She didn't need to.
"Gwendy," Hobie said only for Gwen to cut him off, not wanting his sympathy. Not deserving it. Because Hobie didn't realize that she had betrayed him too.
That she betrayed everyone.
Even herself.
"We need to figure out where Miles is," she said. "First-"
"I'm afraid… I can't allow that."
Gwen and Hobie didn't have a chance for their Spider Senses to warn them before they slammed into the invisible barrier. It was as solid as steel and Gwen swore she felt her teeth rattle from the blow as she struggled to breathe, the air knocked from her lungs. And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, the barrier was gone and Gwen and Hobie were falling, tumbling end over end.
"Hold on!" Hobie said, grabbing her hand and firing a webline only for another barrier to form; because he'd been expecting to have to fire out his webline farther in order to connect with something his line was too long when it caught and Gwen felt her body painfully jerk as they continued to fall before finally being snapped to a halt.
"You think I would allow you around another innocent, Gwen Stacy?" the voice, filled with charm but also rather malicious, said all around them. "Oh no no no… I can't allow that. Ul-Tune, a song if you would? Something a bit more classic?"
"Aw shit, we got a request folks!" Gwen heard as Hobie managed to swing them to a wall. As she stuck herself to it she turned to see that several digital billboards were now displaying-
"Ultron," she whispered in horror.
"Or a version of him," Hobie said, shaking his head. "Now… did I smash my head harder than I thought or is he wearing a rugby jersey?"
"I think its football." Hobie shot her a look and she sighed. "American Football! I mean, are we seriously doing this NOW!?"
"Ain't no wrong time to correct a horrible injustice. It ain't soccer, Gwendy, it's football. What you yanks play is-"
"Now now now," the Ultron, or UL-Tune as he was apparently called, said from a hundred different speakers. "No need ta get upset! I'm here ta bring the love! The fun! And most importantly the music! And I got just the perfect one for our dear magician! So why don't you give it up for some Eurythmics while I introduce to you the greatest magician New Chaos City has ever seen and the Avengers' resident trickster… Nathaniel Asgard!"
And as the music began to play… Asgard appeared.
Sweet dreams are made of this
Who am I to disagree?
I travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
He was dressed like a stereotypical 1920s magician. Tux with tails and a tall top hat perched on his head. A muted green vest with gold buttons and the band around his hat in a matching green and cold. Gold gloves upon his hands, very thin and so tight they might as well have been a second skin. His hair was pulled back and tied behind him but there was no missing for the two Spiders his features. The lean face. The sharp cunning eyes. The cheekbones so defined that they could cut through steel. The smile that warned he was twenty steps ahead of them already.
The barrier suddenly made sense.
"Loki…" Hobie whispered and Gwen swallowed; they hadn't ever run into a Loki during their travels BUT had been warned about them by Miguel. Loki was off limits. Loki was to be avoided. If the choice was between abandoning a canon event and going after Loki to preserve one then it was better to let the world fall than to risk him finding out about the Spider Society.
And now he was standing in the middle of the air (not floating… standing) watching them with a bemused little expression.
Some of them want to use you
Some of them want to get used by you
Some of them want to abuse you
Some of them want to be abused
"I'm sorry, but you must have misheard Ul-Tune. I am Nathaniel Asgard." He gave a bow.
Hobie though shook his head. "Nah, man, don't play us like that. You are Loki… seen enough pictures of you to know who you are."
"I suppose you are somewhat right… I once was Loki. But I have remade myself… refused to play by the rules that were set up and found a way to create a new path." He paused, tilting his head. "But you both know about that, don't you? Hobie Brown, the rebel with a cause, fighting against an unjust system yet also a part of it. You claim to love anarchy yet you just keep finding yourself parts of the machine."
"Don't act like you know me. I have my reasons."
"Yes yes, that is what so many say," Nathaniel said, waving his hand dismissively. "I am reminded of something a drunk once told me: You wanted to be safe from the government so you became a stupid government. You decided to join a Society despite knowing deep in your heart it was just another corrupt organization. And you went along with it because you fed yourself so many tales about how you were doing the right thing." With that Nathaniel pulled out a deck of cards, shuffling them before tossing them into the air, the deck spraying out but the cards not falling to the ground. Instead they floated there, glowing slightly as he began to spin them around. "Let me tell you a tale, shall I?"
"How about not," Hobie said, firing a webline to try and grab onto Nathaniel… only for it to pass right through him. "See, this is why we were warned not to face Lokis," he muttered as Nathaniel disappeared, another one of him appearing just to Gwen's left.
"There was once a little boy who thought the world was a just place," Nathaniel said, the cards floating around him until they took on the shape of a child skipping through the air. "For admittedly about 2 years. Then he found out the world was a shit place full of shit people."
The card boy turned into a butt that began to crap cards.
"…I was not ready for today," Gwen muttered before leaping off the building, trying to tackle Nathaniel. But the magician merely waved his hand and Gwen hit another invisible barrier before Nathaniel, with a flick of his fingers, caused the barrier to slam Gwen right back into the building. "Ow."
"So our little boy grows up to be an angry little man. And I don't mean in terms of height or influence or penis size."
"…that last one feels vaguely racist but its also a compliment so I don't know how to feel," Hobie said, trying to figure out a way to attack the Loki they were facing.
"See, he was so small because of his dreams," Nathaniel stated. "He wanted to overthrow the government and create a free society… but to do that he had to become everything he claimed to hate. Had to organize. Had to find allies and vet them and have rules that kept them around. His bandmates couldn't do what they wanted because that might hurt their goal of being able to do what they want. Said he hated the Spider Society but still remained a part of it til the bitter end. Why… I would wager you would have come right back had things worked out fine for Miles."
"I was using them to get what I needed," Hobie argued.
"Is that what you tell yourself? That it is okay for you to watch as countless people werearrested and imprisoned without trials, attacked and brutalized, innocents allowed to die… because you got what you wanted?" Nathaniel began to walk towards them and Gwen dimly realized he was using his barriers to make it look like he was walking on thin air. "Gee, I'm sure the fascist leader you wanted to overthrow in your crapsack world never thought that way."
"Don't you-"
Nathaniel flung out his hand and the cards swarmed Hobie, forcing him to dive away. Gwen though fired off two weblines and launched herself at Nathaniel only to brace for the barrier she knew he was about to form, slamming her feet onto it and running along its surface before reaching the edge. She only wobbled for a second but she managed to leap over it and dive down at him, firing off weblines to grab onto his jacket.
"You think you have the right to judge us?!" Gwen shouted as she moved to punch Nathaniel only for the magician to form barriers to block her punches. But she kept going at him, forcing him to finally move truly on the defensive. "We make fucking mistakes! We admit that! We say one thing and do the other! You trying to claim you don't! You are a fucking Loki! I know all about your kind! How you lead invasions on New York, how you betray your brother time and time and time again, how you lie so much you can't even figure out what is the truth anymore! You are really going to stand there and try and claim you are better than us?"
"Yes," Nathaniel stated with a smirk. "Because I broke the cycle. A time traveler decided to tell me exactly what I would become. All the secrets of my life. All the things I would learn and do. And rather than continue on as was expected I walked up to my father, gave him a hug, said that I forgave him but I needed to leave. I built a life for myself beyond the need to rule. Found joy and friendship and peace." He suddenly lashed out and Gwen cried out when the cards cut into her costume, ripping her mask to shreds so that it fell away, exposing her face. She could feel tiny little cuts burned on her cheeks and along her forehead, the blood beginning to ooze from the wounds. "I broke the cycle.
"And then there are you two. Hobie Brown, the man that rages against the system and makes his plans only to get swallowed up in another cause. Topple the government, take down this politician, defeat the Spider Society. So many claims of greatness… and what do you do?" He flicked his fingers and Gwen heard Hobie grunt in pain as he was hit by the cards. "Get bored and find something else to rail over."
"I don't do that," Hobie said even as he sprung past Gwen; she had the vaguest sense that his mask had been ripped off too. "I fight for what is right. Rage against the machine… I don't turn away from one machine just because I'm busy with the other!"
"Or maybe you just realize that its one thing to rail and scream in outrage at the unfairness of it all… and another thing to actually fix things." Nathaniel shook his head even as he formed several barriers around Hobie, locking him in place. "Despite all your rage still just a rat in a cage." He flung out his hand, causing Hobie to fly back at Gwen; she leapt off her own barrier just in time to avoid him crashing into her. She fired off a webline and landed on a building, glad to be on something that she could actually see. "You love being the man in the crowd making the snarky remarks. Waiting for the right moment to cut a leader down and call them out on their bullshit. But you don't actually have answers… you just like to do that, act all smug, and then move on. You've never fixed anything and you never will." Nathaniel sent cards at Gwen again, forcing her to run along the side of the building. She heard the glass crack and break as the cards slammed into it at high speed, forcing her to pick up her pace. "The man that screams into the void but never says a word."
And the Nathaniel was suddenly in front of her and Gwen leapt away, firing off a webline to try and swing away.
"Then there is you… the Girl Who Ran," Nathaniel stated even as he had his cards chase after her. "Gwen Stacy… the one who never meet a hard situation she couldn't flee away from. Against a villain you are the hero the world needs… but when it comes to your own life you run off with your tail between your legs."
That… made Gwen pause.
"…I broke the cycle."
That caused Nathaniel to pause his attack and wave in front of him, stepping off the building and creating another battier. Gwen, after a moment, landed on it herself.
"I stopped the cycle," she repeated. "I came back here. I messed up. I… I betrayed Miles. I admit that. I messed up when it came to him. And at first I ran. I went back to Hobie's place because I couldn't accept that I had turned my back on someone… someone I love." She closed her eyes for a long moment. "And I still love him." She opened her eyes and glared at Nathaniel. "But I've come back. And I'm not going to run again."
She thought of what she had just told Hobie minutes earlier. How she wouldn't stick around if Miles didn't want her there. And she realized that was just enough excuse. Another chance to run away.
'And I can't do that anymore,' she thought. "I'm going to stay. I'm going to work to make things right. Even if he'll never be able to love me back. Even if we can never be together… I'm going to be there for him. And… and then I'm going to go back home!" She took a step forward and Nathaniel… made no move to stop her. "I'm going to go home and I'm going to tell my dad everything! About me being Spider-Woman. About what happened to Peter! I'm going to make that right too! I'll apologize to my bandmates! To the people that reached out to me after Peter who I shoved away! I'm going to make things right because I will break the cycle! I'm not going to run anymore!"
He stared at her for a long time.
"…very well."
And with that he began to walk away.
"…what?" Gwen said, blinking in surprise as his cards flew back to him, Hobie landing next to her.
"Let's see how that works out for you, Gwen," Nathaniel said before looking back over his shoulder, a smile crossing his features. "But if you get sucked back in… I'll be waiting."
And with that… he was gone.
"So… that's it then?" Hobie asked.
"No," Gwen said softly. "That's just the beginning." She tensed her body. "Come on… we need to find Miles."
She launched herself into the air, not bothering to make sure Hobie was following.
'Break the cycle,' she thought to herself. 'That's been the entire problem. The Society. Canon Events. Me and Miles. I let myself live in their cycle… or created them on my own. But no more. I don't know if I'll ever get to tell you this Miles… but I'm sorry. And I'm going to make this right!'
She ran.
But this time…
…she ran TO Miles.