Chapter Text
“Miles, please… just… can we just talk? Please?” Gwen Stacy begged as she followed Miles into the Miguel O’Hara’s chamber.
Miles stopped so quickly she almost ran into his back. He slowly turned to look at her, and the conflict and heartbreak in his eyes wounded her already battered heart more. “I… wish nothing more than for us to just go back to how we were up on that clock tower, Gwen. I hope you know that.”
Tears sprang to her crystal blue eyes as she realized there was a ‘but’ coming.
“You found me, helped me save my dad, helped me stop The Spot… and I can’t thank you enough for all that… but that doesn’t change the fact that… Gwen, you hurt me bad.” Tears filled his own eyes as he looked at her. “When I need you the most… you just … I can’t even talk about it anymore, Gwen. But I can’t get past it.”
“Miles… please…” Gwen begged, reaching for him, “Just give me a second chance…”
“Don’t you get it, Gwen?” Miles’ own face was pained as he continued toward Miguel’s chamber. “We had our second chance… and we blew it.” He said as the chamber door opened, and he walked inside.
“Morales,” Miguel greeted turning toward the young Spider-Man.
“O’Hara,” Miles replied as Gwen walked in behind him and the several Spiders gathered to see what was going to happen.
“Have you made your decision?” Miguel said, his eyes going to the goober strapped to his wrist. “I see you’re wearing it. You decide to join us?”
“Yeah, man, I’ve made my decision…” he said, feeling Gwen’s eyes behind him. “You can take your Society and shove it up your ass.” He activated a portal to his dimension and ripped the goober off. “I don’t want to see you or any of your Society set foot in my city or my world ever again. I’m done with all of you…” he said, tossing the goober to Miguel’s feet.
He took a step toward the portal, glanced back, and regretted it the second he saw the heartbreak on Gwen’s face. “Goodbye, Gwen.” He said one last time before he stepped through the portal.
The thought of running after him fleetly crossed her mind as he disappeared, but in the very next moment, Gwen Stacy fell to her knees as the portal closed behind him.
SPIDER-MAN: RETURN TO THE SPIDER-VERSE
Chapter 1: The Ghost of Gwen Stacy
Earth-65, Chelsea Memorial Gardens, NYC… 17 years later…
Christmas day, when most people were happily celebrating with their families, a 33-year-old woman stood before a gravestone and sighed sadly. The cool breeze blew her shoulder length blond hair and trench coat behind her as she continued to stare at the name George Stacy. “Merry Christmas, Daddy,” she said, leaning down to pick weeds that had started to grow on the slightly overgrown turf. “You haven’t missed much these past five years since you’ve gone to be with mom.” “Tried going out with another guy from work, yeah, you guessed it… another Peter Parker, he lasted longer than they usually do. Kinda reminded me of ours in some ways,” she said, pulling up another root. “I think I’m going to throw in the towel and just get a bunch of cats.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t you roll your eyes at me.”
“Speaking of Peter, I checked on him. I had you here so you wouldn’t be too far. Didn’t want my guys to get lonely.” She smiled fondly, “Gonna talk to the garden managers; they need to do a better job of taking care of you two.”
“Honestly, thought about looking… him up in this universe. But I’m almost scared to see what I’d find after Earth 42’s. And besides…” She sighed as she sat back on her calves, “He’d have way too big of shoes to fill anyway.”
“That’s about it, at least for now, Dad.” She stood up and dusted the snow from her knees. “Merry Christmas, and I’ll try to come back after the new year. I love you.”
She slowly made her way out of the memorial garden and was about to open a portal back to Nueva York when she saw several squad cars roar past with their lights and sirens blaring.
“Duty calls,” she said as she dropped her trench coat to reveal her white and black spider-suit with purple webbed highlights. She put on on the all-white mask with purple highlighted eyes and then pulled up her suit’s hood over her head. With a quick pop of her knuckles, she fired her webline and began to swing after the police.
She followed them on to the Oscorp building and watched them secure the perimeter from her wall perch before taking a peek inside the window. In one of the labs she spotted a woman with all the signs of super villain, dark trench coat, purple armoured top, mechanical gloves and boots with glowing highlights, and “is that a Mandalorian helmet?”
Spider-Woman leapt into the air and fired a webline to get momentum before bursting through the window and landing before the armoured woman. “Hey, Mando, this is not the way,” she quipped to gain the woman’s attention.
“Gwen Stacy… a pleasure to finally see you,” the woman’s synthetic voice spoke through the helmet.
This threw Spider-Woman off for a moment. “how do you know my name, have we met?”
“No, but my ex wouldn’t shut the hell up about you.” She turned and fully faced the Spider. “I was hoping I’d have the opportunity to meet and beat the shit out of you.”
“I’ve made a lot of exes mad over the years; care to be more specific?” Gwen asked, leaping into the air just in time to dodge an energy blast from the woman’s gloves.
“Ha, a hint he’s not from around here,” she stated, “Soon as I realized I was coming to Earth-65, I made sure to trip alarms. I wanted you to show up. And unlike what you did to him, you didn’t disappoint me.”
“Seeing as I didn’t disappoint and just made your day, can I get your name?” Gwen asked, flipping over another energy attack.
“Tinkerer,” the armoured thief replied, launching another blast.
“Tinkerer?” Gwen laughed, “I get you’re an anomaly, being from another universe and all, but is it the Earth of lame villain names?”
“That the best you got?” Tinkerer asked, firing off her boot rockets and throwing a punch at Gwen, this time connecting with her chest. The blow sent her hard into the wall.
“What’s the matter, Gwen?” Tinkerer asked, “No pithy comeback?”
“Sure, just give me a second to catch my breath,” She shook her head. “Nice toys…”
“You know, I was expecting more out of you,” Tinkerer stated, tutting as Gwen picked herself back up.
“Just getting warmed up.” She lunged forward toward the Tinkerer, who caught her and rolled backwards, then released trapping cables from the palms of her glove, which wrapped around Gwen before she kicked her into a desk behind her.
Gwen cried out in pain as electricity coursed through her from the restraints.
“I’m sure you’ll be able to get out of those quickly. I’ve already got what I’ve came for. I was just waiting for you to show up so I could see what the fuss was about. I’m not impressed.” Tinkerer pressed a few buttons on the back of her glove and a portal opened. “Have a nice life, Stacy,” she said, walking through as the portal closed.
Gwen growled a moment before she mustered all the strength she had and burst free of the restraints. “Merry freaking Christmas to me…” she said, opening a portal to Nueva York and stepping through before the police rushed into the now empty lab.
---
“It was a portal just like ours,” she said, rubbing her arms. “Our portal tech is almost a hundred years ahead of every other universe…” Miguel O’Hara stated, crossing his arms as Margo and Lyla scanned Earth-65 for traces. “She had to have stolen it.”
“How? We aren’t missing any goobers,” Margo said, scanning multiple screens.
“Just because we’re advanced doesn’t mean someone can’t be smart enough to figure it out for themselves,” Lyla stated. “Remember, Hobie duplicated a goober with scrap.”
“I’m running the name Tinkerer to see if we can get any info on her,” Margo stated, “and I’ve got a few hits. E-616: Tinkerer, real name Phineas Mason, defeated by Spider-Man Peter B. Parker, currently in prison… can’t be the one you ran into, he’s a guy…” she scanned the screen, “Here’s another one, E-1048, Tinkerer, Real Name: Phin Mason, currently deceased, defeated by…” Margo’s eyes went wide a moment, “doesn’t matter, she’s dead. So, other than if she matches the pattern, this is going to be a Phin Mason.”
“Bingo was its name-o!” Lyla exclaimed. “I found two traces of inter-verse portal signatures. One heads here, so that’s gotta be Gwen!” She paused a moment while she scanned the other, “The other one is… fuck me running…”
“What is it?” Gwen asked.
“I think we should just let this one go,” Lyla said quickly, trying to avoid looking at Gwen, “You know, it’s probably a fluke and isolated incident.”
“Lyla, where did she go?” Miguel pressed.
“You’re not gonna like this, boss…” Lyla said nervously.
Lyla faded away, and a screen popped up, showing Gwen the line leaving E-65 on its way through the web of the multiverse, but where it landed made her heart stop and her knees go weak. She hadn’t seen this designation in years. Almost as long since she truly felt herself be ‘Gwen Stacy’. And as she, Miguel and Margo could only stand in shock at the one world, the one single world they did not expect.
“E-1610” flashed on the screen.
Gwen found a chair and sat down roughly, unable to peel her eyes from the screen.
“Miles…” she whispered, feeling like the heartbroken 17-year-old all over again.
Miguel just let his arms fall to the side. “Bueno… mierda.”
To Be Continued