Entry tags:

!log/thread, gwen stacy (ph), peter parker / spider-man (120703)

who peter parker & gwen (ph)
what quarantine pickup
where wandering about the decks
when after gwen's arrival
warnings character death, sad peter, awkwardness on his part

As soon as he saw her, Peter’s pulse had ceased to be. It couldn’t be her this time. In a way, he supposed she wasn’t altogether the same, but they had enough shared memories between them that Peter didn’t know what to do with himself. She had been gone for over a year. Peter had mourned her, attempted to move on, and he hadn’t succeeded. Not really.

Five more minutes.

Landing on the appropriate deck after a carefully aimed leap, he rushed around the bend and found an entrance into the hallway leading up to the medbay. Only mildly out of breath, he braced his weight against the wall and watched the door like a hawk. As soon as it opened, he exhaled what little air he had been holding and balled a fist to his mouth.

“Gwen,” he eventually sputtered out. “Hey - hey. Hi.”

Only then did he produce a few fake lowers with his free hand, then glanced over at it: the stems were all bent. Oops.

“They - they couldn’t take the pressure, clearly.”

Gwen was still rubbing the spot on her arm where she’d been given the vaccine. She hated needles. Of course, she worked with them in the microbiology lab, a bit necessary there, but she still hated them. But, at least it was just one, and although she cooperated, the prospect of starting a life all over again was, well, extremely annoying.

There was universe-hopping native to the last world and then there was just… finding yourself having to adjust to a new universe completely. The more familiar universe-hopping involved getting transported with the rest of the people from Hawaii. They were together and it usually lasted for days, and then she’d be back in her world, swapping stories of where she ended up with her friends.

She had a feeling she’d be on this cruise-ship for a long while.

After given all the info about the cruise, including her room assignment, Gwen headed out of the door, determined to explore the area and find something to occupy her mind. She was not expecting Peter to be standing out there -- although she probably should have, knowing him -- and she did a little jump back when she saw him.

“Peter! Hi!”

He had to see her. “I had to see you,” he voiced and winced at himself. That sounded brutish and creepy, didn’t it? Leave it to Peter to overthink every little thing he said and did. Rubbing the back of his head, he decided to toss the flowers he’d ruined in his attempt to go see her quickly, just to confirm with his own two eyes that she was, indeed, flourishing with life.

“‘Cause, I kinda - kinda wonder how much of all this stuff is real half the time, you know?” Maybe she didn’t, he reasoned. What had her experiences in Hawaii been like her compared to his fairly brief (in comparison) stint in Tumbleweed? She had years to move on, he reminded himself. He’d only just come off of putting the mask back on again to try and help out the finest folks in blue protecting New York City.

“I can go now - if you want.”

“No, that’s fine,” Gwen started, taking a step forward. She wouldn’t even have minded the broken flowers, but he’d already tossed them aside. She wasn’t about to embarrass him further. She’d been wary of this. There had been a Peter Parker in the last universe she was in, but he was a little older, and he was the comic book version. Her Peter did eventually come through, but this one wasn’t him. Obviously.

“You can stay,” she said, at a loss, really, on what to do with her hands. She ended up crossing her arms and casually leaning against the nearest wall. “You’ve been with people on this boat longer than I have, I imagine. What are they like?”

God, this was so much harder than he thought it would be. He’d taken for granted the other Gwen, the one with a different face and powers like his own. Maybe it had genuinely been easier for him to cope with Spider-Gwen because there was that absolute difference. Looking at this Gwen, he didn’t know what to do. Run? Pick up the flowers and offer them a second time?

He could stay, but that meant looking at her face. The face that he’d seen without any life to light it up again. Peter’s hands and jaw tensed. It must have been awkward for her, he reasoned. For him, it was simply painful and joyful all at the same time.

“Good, they’re good,” he nodded rapidly, ever the awkward turtle. “Lot of spiders. Like me, not the actual…” He mimed a spider with his hand. “Y’know. And, uh - the uh - the staff are robots. Can’t take ‘em apart, they don’t like that. Should we… should I show you around a little? Or, you - you probably want to go see your friends. Sorry.”

Gwen waved a dismissive hand and stood up straight. Finally, something to do that would potentially -- hopefully -- take away the awkward. “It’s fine, I can always see them afterwards. I would actually love to be shown around. Maybe you can introduce me to Spider-Gwen!”

She paused. “Or is that too weird to ask?” She’d been correct in assuming that Peter hadn’t exactly moved on (which made her feel a little guilty for having done so), but she had no idea the nature of his friendship, or any kind of relationship, with the other Gwen here.

Leave it to Gwen to exude confidence. Momentarily forgetting not only the awkwardness, but also his anxiety, he smiled fondly at her. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gotten to smile like that, but then reality slapped him right back in the face. She had moved on--which was fair, he didn’t begrudge her that. It just reminded him that he couldn’t make this a habit.

“Not weird,” Peter responded, then took a step forward to get the journey going. “For me - I dunno how you do with doppelgangers. I haven’t had one yet, but, y’know. Fingers crossed,” he emphasized by gesturing the words. “You’re not twins or anything - there’s differences.”

Gwen shrugged. “I knew they existed. I had a few friends with doppelgangers but I never actually met one of myself.” She fell into step with Peter as they made their way down the hallway. “I guess you mean besides the obvious differences. Like the powers? That much I knew. It was hard not to read her comics.”

“You always got it all together,” he voiced, shoulders seeming to sag. It really was a wonder to him what she had ever seen in him. Gwen knew so much, which made the transition easier for her. Struggling with what more he could say or do, Peter knew he had a thousand more questions to ask, and not a single one of them sounded ideal let alone appropriate.

“There used to be another me around,” he opted to say instead. “Younger, like, high school. Different face. This stuff gets easier to swallow the longer you deal with it, huh?”

Despite it being several years since she had seen him, Gwen knew him well enough to pick up on every gesture or change in his body. Had he known much about what he had gone through during the first couple of days in a universe where she found out about her own death, he may not have thought so. But considering that would bring up even more guilt on his part, she didn’t say anything.

“It takes some time. A lot of time. I think some of it was just me saying, hey, sure, universe.. I’ll play along with this game I’m probably making up in my head as a possible hallucination! Finding out it was all real is better than thinking you’ve gone crazy.” She nudged at his shoulder with hers as they walked. “You have a lot to catch me up on here! Ready to spend a few hours with me?”

Was he?

“Loaded question,” he answered with an almost uncomfortable laugh. He wasn’t, but he wanted to be and that was what mattered. So, ultimately Peter gave in with a laugh and nudged her back. "Yeah, I'm ready. My turn to give you a tour of the facilities."

He could do this. If not for her sake, but for his own. What he did after this day was a decision left to tomorrow.