Who: Gwen and Billy What: Trouble in the gymnasium Where: Midtown When: Recently Warnings/Rating: There's some violence, some slut shaming, and some gay bashing in here. It's a party all around, ppl.
Gwen Stacy didn't spend a lot of time in Midtown's gymnasium. She wouldn't have gone there after final period if Harry hadn't left a note in her locker about meeting him. Well, she thought the note was from Harry. It had been tucked into one of the slots in the metal locker, and it had looked like his handwriting and been signed with his name. She didn't question it, given the things that had happened recently. Maybe Harry just wanted somewhere private to talk? She checked the schedule for the school's common areas, and she verified the gym wasn't being used in the hour after school, which just cemented her theory. He probably just didn't want people seeing her with him, and she didn't blame him. She'd thought that having sex with him would improve her social standing, if anything. But it hadn't. Flash had been right about the type of students that were paying attention to her now, and none of them were the popular guys. She'd heard what they were saying to Harry, too, in her early days back to normalcy. Some of them air-fived him for banging a nerd, but others asked him if he'd lowered his standards, and Gwen assumed he wanted to minimize the latter as much as possible. All in all, she couldn't wait for school to end in a month in a half, and she was determined to hide herself in a lab the day school ended, never to emerge. Dramatic, but true.
She was dressed in black tights, a grey skirt and a pink sweater, and she slipped her wool coat off as she pushed the gymnasium doors open. The lights were off, and she walked along the wall, looking for the switch. The distant sound of laughter reached her ears, and she wondered if she'd misread the school calendar. She knew the voices; they sounded like the football players from the subway, the ones she and Mary Jane had avoided, and she considered turning and leaving. She could text Harry and ask him to meet somewhere else, she thought as the voices neared. "Harry?" she called out, forcing strength and calm into her voice. Doubts trickled in, along with memories of the copies of internet photos that had been slipped into her locker, and the emails she'd been getting for days. She stayed calm; her father had taught her a little bit of self-defense, but Gwen wasn't the type to stick around and walk into trouble, not if she could help it. Foregoing the light switch, she turned in the dark, heading back for the door just as the lights buzzed to life behind her.
There were very few things in the world that Billy Kaplan wouldn’t give up, he decided, if it just meant that he could drop psychology from his schedule. At the moment he was struggling to cram the ridiculously oversized textbook into his backpack and dreading the havoc it would wreak on his back during the train ride home. Maybe he could just duck into a bathroom and cast a spell to send his bag home without him, although there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t end up in Singapore or outer space or, hell, even another dimension entirely. And teleportation was out of the question; he couldn’t risk popping into his bedroom only to bump into the maid or, worse, his mother home early from work. Yeah, that wouldn’t end well. She’d practically had an aneurysm the last time Billy had mentioned his lack of enthusiasm for psychology, taking it as some sort of insult to her career choice. The last thing he needed was freak her out any more. Honestly, what was the point of having awesome powers if they held so much potential to backfire?
At last he managed to get the zipper done up, letting out a little huff of breath as he slammed his locker shut and slung his bag over one shoulder. Dressed in a variation of his usual uniform (fitted jeans, a grey cardigan over a white t-shirt), he was headed for the main entrance as he set off down the hall - but somehow, he managed to get turned around and found himself near the gym. Shit. Not for the first time, Billy regretted having turned down the school map that the secretary in the main office had offered him on his first day. How complicated could a single school building really get, right? Apparently ‘very’ was the answer he’d been lacking. He came to a halt at a T-shaped intersection in the hallway, peering in each direction for a few seconds and finally just picking one at random. And as he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he glanced up and spotted a flash of blonde hair and the hem of a pink sweater disappearing around the corner.
Gwen? He was pretty sure he recognized the sweater as the same one she’d been wearing when he’d bumped into her at lunch, and he called out her name - but as he rounded the corner, she was gone. He saw a door to the gymnasium swinging shut, so he figured he might as well duck in and say ‘hey’, and maybe get some decent directions while he was at it. Billy passed by a group of girls that he recognized as football groupies, huddled in a bunch and giggling as they snuck glances in the direction of the gym’s doors. Frowning slightly, he shouldered through the doorway and took a couple steps into the gym, poking his head around a stand of bleachers. He didn’t see Gwen, but he spotted several of the popular jock boys across the room as they flicked on the overhead lights and began to saunter across the hardwood floor, leering at something in the corner of the gym that was just beyond Billy’s line of sight.
“Hey, skank,” the boy in the lead called out in a mocking tone, a harsh sound that bounced off the rafters and echoed around Billy where he stood by the bleachers. “You looking for another dick to suck?”
Across the gymnasium, Gwen had tried to open the door she'd come through, only to find it blocked by two very broad shoulders. It wouldn't swing out, wouldn't budge, and she'd turned and worked on putting on her best I was a school patrol voice, because she'd heard the footsteps approaching. Even before they said anything, she'd heard them. She should have formulated a plan for this, she realized. She always formulated plans for everything, and she should have formulated a plan for this. After all, there had been enough advance warning, given the pictures and emails. She wondered - not for the first time in the past year - if liking a boy made her lose brain cells. But no, brain cell loss was an urban legend, a disproved myth, and even the changes caused by the maturing of brain cells couldn't cause this kind of ill-planning. As she turned, she wished she had powers like everyone she was meeting lately, abilities, and she wished she wasn't just a throwaway that was meant to die so the hero fall in love with the heroine. It was quick, all of those thoughts, a rapid succession of logic and pity. Because she was scared. When it came right down to it, Gwen Stacy was scared.
"You're not on the calendar to use the gymnasium this afternoon," she finally said, managing a fair approximation of that school-patrol voice. She hugged her books to her chest, advanced trig pressing again expensive pale pink, and she held her head high and refused to cower. Well, she was already in the corner now, it wasn't like she could back up any further.
When the lead boy called out in that mocking tone, her stomach turned over. She wasn't really accustomed to attention from boys. The combination of being a nerd and having the police captain for a father had shielded her from most of the dating nightmares girls suffered in high school. And Peter - hers, not either of the ones here - had been nothing but sweet to her. She didn't have a built-up tolerance for slurs, and she grasped for an appropriate quip, only to find herself empty handed. The comment about sucking a dick, that made her mind start racing, though. She'd never done that, and the combination of fear and inexperience (and what they'd do with that inexperience) made her clear her throat. "I don't see any dicks worth sucking," she said loudly, and though her voice betrayed her by shaking, which made the approaching boys laugh.
She waited a second, and she reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out her cellphone. Without warning, she snapped a picture of them, the cellphone's snick echoing in the gymnasium. It might piss them off, but she'd have proof they'd been there. Maybe retribution would scare them off.
And beneath it all, she thought about how stupid she'd been to think Harry wanted to meet her somewhere.
The girl’s voice burst forth from the far corner of the gym, just beyond Billy’s sightline - bold and unwavering in a way that told him the owner was, in fact, trying not to sound terrified. Gwen. Besides the fact that he’d heard the same voice blurt out many a correct answer in the classes they shared, he also recognized the predatory tones emanating from the boys and their slurs while they clamoured for chaos and attention. He didn’t know them, exactly - but he knew their kind. The kind that didn’t get this excited unless they were poised to violate someone both higher and mightier, and in a particularly unpleasant way.
Billy watched with a furrowed brow as the boy in front, a bulky linebacker named Joey, closed the gap between him and - there she was. As Billy leaned out from around the end of the metal bleachers, he spotted Gwen where she’d been backed into a corner, shrinking away from the approaching young men and looking for an escape route with no small amount of desperation.
Of course, the fact that these boys were so very focused on Gwen meant that none of them were particularly inclined to spare a glance in Billy’s direction, even as he stepped out from behind the bleachers. With an almost careless flick of his hand, he managed to send up a wall of energy between Gwen and the advancing line of would-be aggressors - a perfectly transparent thing, just solid enough to leave a nasty mark as Joey ran into it face-first, nose instantly bloodied by the impact with the force field. Stifling his snicker with a hand pressed to his mouth, Billy was more than delighted to watch Gwen snap a picture at exactly the right moment, possibly even capturing the arrogant bastard’s image just as he toppled to the floor.
And even then, by some small miracle neither the girl nor her attackers had noticed him in his place against the metal risers that lined the gymnasium. This gave him enough room and enough time to crouch against the shield of the metal steps, squeezing his eyes shut and forming a clear picture in his mind.
“Embarrass them, embarrass them, embarrass them,,” he mumbled under his breath, repeating the mantra over and over until he could feel the very particles in the air shifting around him; he felt the warmth of twisting and morphing energy, something that crackled in the air like electricity. And by the time that Billy opened his eyes once more, he was greeted by the sight of each football player cringing at their sudden near-nakedness, having been stripped without ceremony down to their underwear.
A sudden thud announced Billy’s arrival as he dropped his overloaded backpack on the gym floor, sauntering out from the shadows and folding his arms over his chest. When he finally spoke aloud, his voice echoed around the wide-open space of the gymnasium, taunting and teasing simultaneously.
“Sorry, boys - are we interrupting something important?”
Gwen had considered the snapped photograph a desperation measure. Something to scare the boys into retreating. She hadn't thought it would capture a bloody nose and an angry expression. She didn't immediately understand that there was an invisible barrier, because fear overrode the part of her mind that would have recognized the inertia for what it was. She saw a bloody nose, and a delayed advance and, like anything that was cornered and grasping for bravado, she was just grateful. Her mind immediately turned to escapes, to ways to capitalize on the unexpected windfall of that topple to the ground. But fleeing meant moving forward, and her feet didn't seem to want to obey.
The boys that were further back continued forward. One helping their friend up, and the others calling out more taunts, saying things she'd never actually believed came out of the mouths of students. If she ever needed a reminder that she'd lived the most protected life in all of Midtown, this was it. She didn't even know what half of the things they were threatening to do to her were. She gave up the notion of running entirely, cowering back and speaking instead. Words had always been her weapon; her mind had always been the thing she called on when she was frightened. "If you do anything to me, there will be DNA proof that you can't get rid of, and my father was the police captain in this city for years. You won't get away with-"
She was interrupted by a litany of insults, most of which centered around the fact that she should be grateful for their attention. She knew she wasn't popular, and she knew she was plain, but hearing them say it still hurt. Maybe it was that hurt that kept her from noticing their almost-nudity right away. It took a second, and by the time her blue eyes widened with surprise, that thud echoed in the gymnasium.
She almost sagged with relief. She didn't understand the full breadth of Billy's power, but she didn't need to just then. He was a friendly face, and she would have been just as happy to see him if he hadn't managed to make the football players hastily cover their boxers and briefs with their hands. The look she shot him was relieved, so very relieved, and she took a step forward and met with the invisible barrier.
A few of the boys cursed, but headed for the door to the locker rooms, unwilling to keep playing a game with someone who could do what Billy had done. They called him names as they went, slurs that had to do with his sexuality, mostly. But a few others refused to back down, and it was Joey, with his bloody nose that stormed across the gymnasium, chest puffed out and face red with anger.
"Get the fuck out of here, queer. Unless you like pussy all of a sudden?"
Not for the first time, Billy found himself grossly unimpressed by the limited vocabularies of neanderthal football players. There were only so many hundreds of times that they could call him a pervert and a faggot and still expect it to sting, and that point had been passed a long time before he’d even come to Midtown. (Figuring out that he had the power to squash them like bugs if he wanted to? Yeah, that might have helped heal some of the wounds.) And so he didn’t flinch as they spat their venomous words in his direction - but the things they were screaming at Gwen, about what they wanted to do to her? That made him feel sick, and more than a little horrified on her behalf. At least the homophobes never threatened to rape him.
So maybe his anger was building, and maybe that made him less inclined to let Joey off quite as easily as he’d originally planned. He ignored the fleeing peons, confident that most of them would find some way to rationalize what had happened to them without pointing the finger back at Billy - and the ones that didn’t would hopefully be so eager to avoid another involuntary Playgirl moment that they’d just pretend it never happened. Joey, on the other hand, was a different story. With a different ending.
“You’re calling me the queer?” Billy asked with a feigned air of incredulity. (Alright, maybe he was enjoying this a bit more than he should have.) With his arms crossed over his chest and a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, he closed the very narrow distance between them. Gone were the days when he would have cowered in the face of such vehemence. Gone were the days of being a victim, of getting the shit beat outta him between classes and wishing that he could defend himself. Scarlet Witch had shown him that he could be strong; the only legacy he had to display for his biological heritage. He wasn’t about to let her down now.
“Looks like I’m the one who interrupted your kinky little after-hours orgy, Joe. Tell me, is that why you’re threatening Gwen? Afraid she’ll spill about your... proclivities?”
And oh, how sweet it was to watch the brute’s forehead crumple in consternation as he tried to decipher exactly how Billy was taunting him. Encouraged to find that he was getting under Joey’s skin, he leaned in close to the taller boy, mouth twisted into a sneer and blue eyes blazing bright with anger. “You know, I would have bet good money that you were a boxers guy. Does your mommy still wash your tighty-whities?”
Billy risked a glance in Gwen’s direction, just long enough to make sure she was safe behind the barrier. The relief in her eyes was practically palpable, and he made a note to give her the biggest hug he could manage as soon as Joey fled the building with his tail between his legs. For a brief moment he wondered what the girl had done to enrage the footballers, especially curious because that was an avenue generally reserved for the likes of Billy himself.
“Get out, and I won’t flood the school with rumours about your football-polygamy,” he intoned with a solemn smile, turning his gaze back to the head bully and reaching up to wipe a fleck of blood from the boy’s cheek with one slender finger. “Now.”
Joey was stuck in that age-old place between saving face and putting up a fight, and running away as fast as his feet could carry him. Even Gwen, who hadn't experienced anything like this in her life, knew that's what was happening in the footballer's mind. She'd always lived in that safe place of nerdom, where she wasn't ugly enough to be ridiculed openly for her looks, and where her grades were good enough that she had helped pretty much half of the senior class with tutoring at some point. There were a lot of Flash Thompsons in her life; bullies who let her bark at them about their homework. And, until recently, no one had wanted to risk tangling with her dad. But her dad was dead now, and things had changed since "she'd" been arrested in February. But even with all that, she knew that Joey was trying to figure things out, and she was helpless to do anything with that barrier in place.
Joey had size on Billy, but that was about all he had. The consternation on the bully's face was painfully obvious across the gymnasium. He tried to start a response, a croaked, "you've seen the pictures, man. She puts out," as if he'd forgotten that he'd just called Billy a queer the second earlier. And maybe he would have left a few seconds later, because there was something that looked like confused fear on Joey's face, like he didn't understand why he was scared of the kid in front of him. His body even tensed to move, but then Billy touched his cheek, and things went to hell.
Gwen couldn't hear whatever Billy had said, but he did hear the explosive, "don't touch me, you fucking faggot!" that Joey yelled a second later, even as he took a step back. A beat, and then Joey threw a punch, and Gwen slammed her fists on the barrier. She had no idea if Billy could hear her from whatever he'd thrown up to protect her from the boys, but she wasn't going to just stand there silently.
"Billy, no," she cautioned, and it was the same kind of warning she would throw at Flash, if Flash was angry. She had no idea yet if Billy was the kind to lose his temper, and if his powers were a problem when he was angry. With Flash, she would have been panicking about Venom just then, and the panic she felt as she helplessly watched the scene was of the same exact ilk. "Let him go!" she called out, because Joey pulled back after the punch, pulled away, as if to leave.
It would have been a lie, were Billy to claim that he hadn’t been expecting the punch that came from the left and slammed into his cheekbone. There was nothing particularly special about his bones, no X-Gene that gave his skull the strength of steel - and so naturally, it freaking hurt when Joey’s fist crunched against his face. But at the same time, he wasn’t the sort to lose his temper if he could really help it.
He absorbed the sound of Gwen’s hands pounding against the invisible barrier of energy somewhere behind him, and he even heard the echo of her voice against solid walls and painted floor and far-off ceiling. But the significance of her plea, her cry to ‘let him go!’ was lost in the flurry of movement, swallowed up by the desperate snarling that spilled out of Joey’s mouth as he dove in Billy’s direction. He played at being something deadly, and Billy did not demand worse for fear that the lowly mortal might be outmatched and accordingly injured. He stood up for himself as he could, raising his left arm to block the tail-end of a swipe and a sneer. And despite the spilling rage, he was pleased - in the end - to see all of the trouble that he had caused.
Of course, he was only human (well, sort of). Reeling from the punch, he did not feel able to lash out quite so soon as he may have liked. One hand raised to the purple-red bruise that blossomed on his cheek, some part of him wishing that he had ice and finding himself sadly unsurprised by the injury. And maybe he found too much enjoyment in the antagonism - but the important thing? The important thing was that he did not lose control. The important thing was that he didn’t lash out yet again, he did not loosen the tenuous grasp he had on his very fragile sense of peace that had taken over when most of the angry thugs had fled from the room.
“Go,” he growled in Joey’s face, angry enough to bare his canines. He could see the awareness of his mistakes and the terror that filtered through the other boy’s expressions, but it didn’t bother him. “You should probably listen to her, buddy. Trust me, she’s a lot smarter than both of us.”
And by some small miracle, Joey left. He turned and he shoved his way through the nearest set of double doors, on a route that would send him across the back field. Billy took just enough time to wipe the back of his hand across his face, smearing blood under his nose as he turned to Gwen and dropped the force field in the same gesture. “You okay?” He called out, cleaning the mess off his hand as best he could against the soft cotton of his cardigan.
Gwen rushed forward as soon as he dropped the force field, almost tripping over her own feet in her haste to make it to where he was. "That was so completely illogical and ill-planned and stupid, Billy Kaplan," she said as she moved, her cheeks bright red with feeling and worry, and a million scenarios for how badly this could have turned out whirring through her mind. She skidded to a stop once she was close enough to touch him, and her hands immediately fluttered near his face. "We need a first aid kit," she said a second later, sliding into logic. It was a good thing she'd spent so much time patching her Peter up from his run ins with the Lizard, because it took a large quantity of blood for her to really panic.
She grabbed his good hand, and she tugged him toward the girl's bathroom, where she knew a first aid kit was mounted on the wall, intended to deal with cuts and scrapes from gym class. She didn't care that he was a boy just then, and she'd glare anyone down who tried to tell her that he was the wrong gender to be in the bathroom.
She muttered as she went, fear giving way to embarrassment and anger. "I can't believe I was so stupid to believe Harry had asked me here," she said, a shaky indrawn breath. "I can't believe there are students like that, and that they'll graduate and go on to become terrible adults, who raise children with their own biases and perpetuate a culture of hate." But that wasn't true; she did believe it. She just hadn't even been face-to-face with that kind of gay-bashing before. Just like she hadn't ever been face-to-face with the possibility of sexual assault. It was like the protective bubble that was her reality had been pricked by a tiny pin in April, and all the air was slowly seeping out. It wasn't the most scientific of analogies, but it applied all the same.
She hipped the door open, and she tugged him inside. The bathroom was blissfully empty, and she let herself breathe again once the door closed behind them. She didn't immediately grab for the first aid kit. She looked at him instead, her pale blue eyes watering almost immediately. She hugged him a second later, this boy she barely knew, but who had just saved her from the singular most terrifying event in her life. The Lizard breathing on her face in Oscorp was nothing compared to what she'd felt when those guys in the gym cornered her.
She sniffled, and she pulled back and reached for the first aid kit. "Sit on the counter," she said, trying to use her best I'm fine and being bossy voice; it always worked with Flash.
It was all he could do to keep from staring at Gwen with the very simple sort of blankness that filled his head; he did not argue as her slender hands fluttered around his face like pale, delicate moths. Neither did he complain as she grabbed his wrist and dragged him off the in the direction of the girls’ bathroom, no doubt in search of some gauze and some medical tape that would renew her sense of security in the world. “Gwen, really - I’m fine - ”
No, he was still reeling from the force of Joey’s punch to his face and the knowledge that he could have destroyed that piece of shit at any moment. That instead he had chosen to protect this very serious, slightly peculiar girl from the violence and ridicule that being spectacular had awarded her in life.
“Gwen - “ he protested, glancing at the row of stalls and noting with some slight sense of relief that they appeared to be alone. The next moment was something both sweeter and darker, as Billy found himself with the girl’s arms flung around his shoulders and squeezing tight until he thought for a moment that he might just choke. At least he managed to keep his eyes from prickling with the slow burn of tears, and he found that it was actually pretty easy to follow Gwen’s orders. Billy hopped up on the counter and laced his fingers together in his lap, raising expectant eyebrows. “You know that you’re basically terrifying, right?” It was an affable quip, accompanied by a good-natured smile and meant to ease some of the fraught tension that filled the air between them.
And before he received an answer, Billy reached out and caught the girl’s hand in his own. He couldn’t use his powers to heal himself, but his attempts to use the same ability on the people around him had proven successful just about once in a blue moon. Billy closed his eyes under the pretense of holding still for Gwen’s careful first aid, but really he was trying to focus his energy on the bright, luminous ball of anxiety that had the girl lit up from within like a nuclear power plant. He wasn’t at all sure that he could soothe or disperse the dangerous energy, but he could try. And so he was quiet as she daubed at the bloody mess of his nose, playing the role of a very well-behaved patient.
She didn't hear all his assurances of being fine. She didn't hear anything until she was standing in that bathroom, looking at him as he hopped up onto that counter. The hug was a thing that came entirely without thought or pre-planning, but she didn't regret it once she stepped back. Her father had been a disciplinarian, yes, but he'd always been quick to hug his kids, and Gwen didn't have any hang-ups about affection. It was only her social awkwardness that got in the way of any easy kind of close contact with her friends. His declaration that she was terrifying made her scrunch her features up in confusion, as if she'd encountered an unexpected scientific theory that she didn't know what to make of. "I'm not terrifying," she finally said logically, managing that, even through the nervous tension that was coursing through her. No one had ever called her terrifying before, not even Flash when she insisted he finish his homework before playing video games late into the night.
His hand had closed on hers while she was trying to figure out the unexpected equation that added up to her, somehow, being terrifying, and she looked down at his hand with that same questioning look from earlier. Had she been calmer, she might have understood that there was a logical purpose to the gesture, one that wasn't related to simply getting her attention. "What?" she asked, relenting and letting him keep hold of her fingers as she ministered to his nose. She frowned, frowned more, and muttered as she worked, angry at the football players, angry at him for putting himself in harm's way, and angry at anyone who would say the things they'd said about him. She was so occupied with being angry for him, that she didn't even notice when her own tension began to abate. And by the time she'd finished cleaning the blood off his face, she could breathe without feeling the terrible pressure that had been weighing her down since the last time she'd talked to Harry.
She looked down at his hand, first aid kit pushed aside, and then she gave him a curious look, one that was almost scientifically accusing in nature. "Did you do something?" she asked, remembering her lecturing nature a second later. "Do they say things like that a lot? We need to report them if they do," she said, still trusting in law and justice in a way that only a girl raised by a police captain could.
Billy couldn’t help the laughter that spilled from his lips and echoed against the tiled walls of the girls’ bathroom, blue eyes flashing with amusement. “You are most definitely terrifying,” he countered wryly, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. With his free hand, he ticked off all the girl’s best qualities, one finger after another. “Brilliant, check. Inhumanly logical, check. Beautiful, double check. And the ability to instill fear in a guy who could probably tie her in knots with his mind? That’s, like, a quadruple check. For a mortal girl, you’re very intimidating. Hell, even for a non-mortal. And I know some scary super-chicks.”
He nodded matter-of-factly and grinned down at her, unruffled by the fact that she didn’t seem to understand his sudden display of affection that had her hand captured in his own. Fortunately, she was so preoccupied with the blood that streamed freely from his nose that he didn’t even have to fight against any barriers to her mind. She was soft and moldable, like putty being formed into a new shape from the inside-out. Her consciousness proved very agreeable to Billy’s healing influence, though whether it was just because she liked and trusted him, he couldn’t say. He probably couldn’t have done the same thing had she been aware of his intentions.
“Uh, you could say that,” he said, making a face and deliberately ignoring her first question - not to mention that accusatory glance that said she was onto him. “To be honest, you kinda got the PG version. Usually they get a lot more graphic when describing all the ways in which I’m going to burn in hell. My favourite so far has been the vivid description of hot pokers being shoved up my - “ He broke off just then, giving her a sidelong glance and clearing his throat. “Nevermind. Really, though. I’m fine. It’s no big, and reporting them is just going to give them more reason to harass me.”
Something occurred to Billy in that moment, and a pained expression crossed his face. “I shouldn’t have done what I did, Gwen. They’re just going to come after you again, and next time I might not be there to stop them. I’ve only made it worse for you.”
She was shoving at his knee by the time he finished ticking off his list, her cheeks gone a dusky pink where her blonde hair wasn't clinging to them. "Shut up, Billy Kaplan," she chastised, using the same tone she used with Flash, that exasperated fond tone, the one that said she really liked the person she was telling to be quiet. "I'll take brilliant, though," she conceded jokingly a second later. "It was hard work getting to be top of the class all four years I was here." It was boastful, but she said it in a plain, matter-of-fact way. She was a nerd, through and through, with all the social awkwardness and inappropriate comments about intelligence that came with it. She'd never pretended she didn't know the answers in class, and she never went easy on anyone she tutored, and she'd tutored a good portion of the senior class. She'd even tutored some of the football players that had just turned on her. If Flash was still on the team, she realized, the scene in the gymnasium never would've happened.
"Don't change the subject," she said when he shifted away from what he'd just done. She couldn't exactly quantify the change - though she would later, once she was alone and making notes. His comment about how people usually talked to him, though, that got her ire up enough that it completely derailed her scientific curiosity. "But we can't let them get away with it. They'll just join society and spread their hate in their adult lives. We have to do something." Once upon a time, she'd told her Peter Parker that it wasn't his job to stop the Lizard and save the world. But things were different now; she'd changed. Peter had changed her, and her dad's death had, too. She wasn't okay with just turning the other cheek.
She didn't like the pained expression that crossed his face, and her own anger-bright cheeks paled when he made his comment. "It's only for a month longer," she said of school, and she packed up the first aid kit and returned it to its place. "Anyway, it's logical to assume that they were going to continue their behavior regardless. I've been getting naked pictures in my locker for weeks, and I should have realized the note from Harry wasn't really from Harry, since I haven't heard from him since things calmed down," she admitted, the moment of vulnerability making her honest. "I'll ensure I walk to classes with other students, and I'll be careful. I walked into this one on my own, and they're limited by what they can do in a public setting." Logic, if only her voice didn't shake slightly.
Voices outside had her turning her head, and she looked back at him quickly. "We better go. Thanks for helping," she said, shame filtering its way into her voice.
Billy did his best to adopt a sobering expression, eyes cast downward as he reached up to rub at the back of his neck. He didn’t quite manage the apologetic grimace, but then he wasn’t really sorry - not for his compliments, anyway. Whether or not they made Gwen embarrassed or uncomfortable, he’d meant every word. He was pleased when she accepted his appraisal of her own superior intelligence, and the grin that tugged at the corners of her mouth served little to discourage him. He noted that she was even prettier when she laughed, but some remaining self-preservation advised him to refrain from mentioning this fact. For the moment, everything seemed okay - no doubt they were sharing in a sense of giddy relief, having scared off the big bad bully and his sycophants.
And really, he made every effort to keep his face free of patronizing expressions as she made her declarations about what the boys and their snarls and their fists couldn’t be allowed to get away with - not that it was without effort. The thing was that Billy knew the drill, he’d been part of the system his whole life and he understood that trying to change the hierarchy in high school was a lot more hazardous than keeping his head down and deflecting attention where he could manage it. He got enough of that when he was out there in the real world, casting his lightning and his spells against real villains of the universe. If he found a little relaxation in the insignificance of high school drama, did that make him a bad person?
So Billy didn’t argue when his new friend more or less glossed over the injustice to which they’d just been witness. Instead he sat up a little straighter when she mentioned Harry again, taking just a moment to turn and examine his nose in the mirror behind him - yeah, seemed fine. Still a little more prominent than he’d like, but relatively straight and not yet swollen. The bleeding had stopped, and he shot Gwen a grateful glance as he slid down off the counter. “What do you mean, the note from Harry? They - “ he waved one arm in the direction of the gymnasium, making it clear that he meant the football players. “Left you a note, pretending to be Harry? Because they’ve been harassing you?”
He did not allow her to dismiss the situation, moving around to block her path to the swinging door and reaching out to place both hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Gwen. This isn’t your fault, so please stop blaming yourself. You know that’s what they want, right? For you to think you somehow deserve it?”
When he rubbed at the back of his neck, it reminded her of Peter - her Peter. He'd done that when he was unsure, sheepish or shy, and she gave him a small, bittersweet smile without even realizing it. It made her not realize when he didn't agree with her about doing something to stop the hate from the football players. Gwen had never been big on causes. She tutored students, and she kept Flash from picking on nerds, but that's as far as she'd gone to change the world. She was just starting to realize how much more she could do, and how much she'd overlooked. She'd been born an upper-class girl, and she'd lived an upper-class life. It was only now, when home was a really unfortunate apartment with Flash in Queens, that she saw the other side of life. It was eye opening, to say the least.
"Your nose looks perfectly cute," she assured him when he examined it in the mirror. She wished, just then, that there was a way to get his boyfriend back for him. She knew nothing would make that bloody nose feel better in the same way as having someone he cared about there. But she didn't say it, because she didn't want to get his hopes up. People showed up all the time, as indicated by her rapidly growing wall chart at Stark Tower, but it was unpredictable at best.
"You saw the pictures and videos, right?" she asked, her cheeks going bright, bright red. "Of me and Harry? They left a note in my locker from Harry, saying he wanted to meet me in the gymnasium, so I came. But it was stupid. He hasn't talked to me since he told me a dozen times that it was a huge mistake to hook up with me." She managed to sound nonplussed, like a scientist relaying observational data, but her eyes said otherwise.
She didn't see the block coming because she'd averted her eyes when they watered, and she looked up when his hands settled on her shoulders. "I don't blame myself, and I know they're wrong. I'm just embarassed, and I was scared," she admitted. There was no point pretending otherwise.
She took a step back, and she gave him a grateful smile. "Really, I'll be fine," she said, a hint of spine and resilience in the statement. Her smile warmed, and it hinted at the carefree thing it had been earlier in the year, before her dad died, and before Peter changed, and before she fell hard for Harry. "You're super sweet, Billy Kaplan," she told him, all honesty in the compliment.
A crease appeared between Billy’s eyebrows as the mention of the tabloid photos only served to deepen his frown, not to mention his concern. Yeah, he’d seen the trashy magazines with their blurry photos, and at the time he’d mostly been amused and a little jealous that Gwen had gotten to hook up with someone who looked like Harry. Now he just felt like an idiot for not realizing how the assholes would have jumped on the chance to knock the smartest girl in school down a peg or two.
Billy didn’t follow her retreat as she took a step back, dropping his hands back to his sides. He recognized the expression of pain that flit across her features and made her eyes shine with tears, and he also recognized the need to fight that pain. To be strong, if only to convince one’s self of the existence of strength. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed, you know. If Harry’s too in love with himself to see what’s right in front of him, that only confirms my scientific theory that all boys that pretty are morons. All the straight ones, anyway.”
He moved to lead the way out of the girl’s room, holding the door open for his friend with the sweet smile and the sad eyes. “Let me just grab my back from the gym, okay? Then you can teach me how to get the hell out of this maze of a school.”