Chapter Text
A chilly gust of winter air billows around Gwen’s perch atop Skyline Tower, blowing her hood from the back of her head.
Giving a small huff of annoyance, she reaches up to tug it back over her ears, the sharp magenta eyes of her mask narrowing as she scans the city streets below for what feels like the thousandth time in the last three minutes.
Nothing but the traffic lights blink back in the dark, reflecting off the thin layer of snow coating the pavement. It’s a slow night. Maybe a little too cold for criminals to come out and play.
Good. That’s good,Gwen reminds herself, finding she isn’t as quite as thrilled about her uneventful evening as she should be. If only because that means patrol is ending early and it’ll soon be time for her to head in for the night. No more distractions from the empty apartment awaiting her. The place is just as void of warmth as the ice coated streets.
So rather than resign to her fate, she zips down from the rooftop and heads west.
Gwen allows herself to get lost in the rhythm, in the wind whipping by her face and the rush of adrenaline pumping through her veins as she swings through the city. A myriad of lights blur under her feet as she lets muscle memory take her where she needs to go.
She reaches Brooklyn sooner than she expects to, an all too familiar window emerging into view. The blinds are drawn shut, but just as expected, she spots the blue slivers of light from a computer screen peeking through the cracks. He never sleeps before midnight.
Dropping soundlessly onto the fire escape, Gwen raps softly on the glass.
No answer.
She tries again, a little louder this time.
A moment later, the window flys openwith Miles poking his head through the opening. The bright yellow headphones she’d given him last year hang around his neck, music still thumping mutedly through the speakers.
Leaning against the window sill, an amused, if slightly perplexed look crosses his face. “And to what do I owe the pleasure, Ms. Spider Woman?”
“Hey,” she says, peeling off her mask. “You busy?”
Miles smiles wryly. “Nah, not really. Just…procrastinating on my geology paper.”
Gwen rolls her eyes. She’s long since learned that lecturing him about his poor study habits does very little in the way of actually encouraging him to get anything done. Sometimes he’ll even take it as a challenge to see how far out he can push the assignment. But she isn’t worried. Miles has a talent for waiting until the very last minute while still miraculously managing to maintain a 4.0 GPA, a skill she remains sorely envious of.
“What about you?” He asks, squinting slightly as his eyes adjust to the dark. “Aren’t you supposed to be out, y’know… pew pew, ” he motions with his hands, imitating her web shooters, “…sticking criminals to walls and stuff?”
“Strung them all up already.” She shrugs. “So, I thought I’d swing by and keep you out of trouble instead.”
Miles gives a light laugh, crawling up out of his bedroom window to join her on the fire escape. “Well, you’ve successfully rescued me from doing my term paper, so consider your mission accomplished.”
She smiles, shuffling over to make room for him beside her. “All in a day's work.”
Another frigid breeze ripples through the balcony, shooting an involuntary shiver down Gwen’s spine. Her suit usually deflects most of the chill, but now that her skin is exposed to the early December weather, it prickles against her skin.
“Sorry,” Miles says apologetically, jabbing a thumb back towards his window. “I’d invite you in, but my mom’s home.”
Gwen shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it.”If anything, she’s more concerned about him. If she’s shivering, he must be freezing, holding on to the cold metal railing.
Had this been a Friday afternoon, or really any reasonable hour, rather than eleven-thirty on a Tuesday night, they’d pile into his room without a second thought, and within a few minutes, Mrs. Morales would inevitably pop in offering to make them a snack.
Unfortunately, Miles’ parents have since established a very strict ‘No-girls-in-the-apartment-if-we-don’t-know-about-it-and-yes-that-includes-Gwen’ rule. And the walls of this apartment are tragically paper thin, so sneaking in isn’t really an option.
But Gwen doesn’t mind. She’s perfectly content with the fire escape, just grateful to have somewhere to be.
Closing her eyes, she draws in a breath, letting the icy air rush down into her lungs before pushing it back out, her breath curling above her in a puff of white smoke.
Miles gently bumps her knee with his own. “Hey,” he says softly, eyes suddenly tinged with concern. “Everything okay?”
“Uh…yeah,” she sighs. “Yeah. Just- uh, don’t wanna go home yet.”
Miles nods in understanding. He knows better than to ask if her dad will be up waiting for her, and for that she’s grateful.
He’s quiet for a second longer before springing up from his seat. “Wait right here,” he tells her, clambering back through his window and disappearing inside.
Within a minute, he returns with two glass bottles of root beer in hand and a comforter tucked under his arm.
Gwen feels herself break into a wide grin.
It’s been at least a couple months, what with school and other… extracurriculars getting in the way, but this had always been their tradition—sitting together on the fire escape, watching traffic pass, and sharing a drink of choice while they discussed whatever was going on at the moment. Drinks depended on the occasion. Horchata de ajonjolí for celebrations, iced tea for everyday, and root beer when something’s gone wrong.
(Partially because the root beer bottles look vaguely like the regular beers their dads used to keep in the fridge, specifically for brooding about taxes and politics and other depressing grown-up stuff on dreary Saturday nights. And as kids, Gwen and Miles had liked to pretend that they too were commiserating about life’s tragic misfortunes.)
Miles hands the bottles to Gwen as he drapes the comforter around them both, bundling them together in a cozy cloud of shared body heat.
When he drops down beside her again, she hands him one, absently flicking the metal cap off with her thumb. It shoots up into the air, landing with a loudplink on the floor.
Miles jolts slightly, giving a startled laugh. “I’m still not totally used to that,” he says, shaking his head.
Gwen repeats the motion with her own, the bottle giving a crisp little hiss as she cracks it open.
“Me neither,” she admits.
Miles settles back against the brick wall, “So,” he says, voice picking up a more casual, comfortable lilt, “what’s up?”
Gwen pauses for a moment, rolling the cap between her thumb and forefinger. She considers unloading everything that’s been going on in the last few months, fuming and feeling sorry for herself until she’s had enough. She could, knowing that Miles would listen. Not just pretend to listen in hopes of placating her, but really, truly give a crap. He’s always been pretty great like that. But she’s been stewing in it all for so long, she doubts it’ll make her feel better.
For just a little while, Gwen decides she wants to be a normal teenage girl with normal teenage problems again. So she doesn’t tell him about the giant robotic rhino that ambushed her last week, or that Mayor Jameson convinced her dad to double the reward price for Spider Woman’s capture. He already knows anyway, it’s been all over the news.
Instead, she complains about the history exam that took her two weeks to study for, and what a total stick in the mud Em Jay is being about the set lists for their next show. In turn, he tells her about the mural he’s been working on at the old pizzeria down the street, and the cranky new geology teacher, Mr. Marko, who has them writing their term paper on the properties of different kinds of sand.
“Sounds rough,” she grimaces. “I get why you’re putting it off now.”
Miles chuckles, the sound low and warm like a crackling fire. “You think I should write it on Kinetic Sand just to mess with him?”
“Oh, definitely,” Gwen nods. “If he blows a fuse, it might make things more interesting.”
He grins. “Hey, who knows? Maybe he’s got a sense of humor in there somewhere. We might get to see him crack a smile for once.”
As they jump from one mundane topic to another, their voices echo out into the night, childish giggling and inside jokes bouncing off the bricks of nearby buildings, and before Gwen realizes it, her troubles seem to have ebbed away like the tide on Coney Island. A temporary break, but a sweet relief nonetheless.
Her fingers curl around the neck of her bottle as she takes another swig, the cold, sugary liquid sparkling down her tongue. It’s just root beer but she still feels lighter, warmer, almost bubblier, like she’s a little drunk on their laughter.
Though, her fingertips are still freezing despite the blanket.So as Miles goes on about some ridiculous idea Sam Alexander had the other day to release a horde of rabbits into the hallways during exams week, she tucks her hands under her arms and lets her head fall against his shoulder.She allows her eyes to drift shut again, taking comfort in the familiarity of Miles’ side pressed against her own, elbows and knees knocking together. Even before the whole Spider-DNA, half cold-bloodednonsense, somehow he’s always been a little warmer than she is.
She listens to the rhythmic rise and fall of his voice, letting it fill the quiet, and glances up to his face.
The glow of a passing car’s headlights washes over them, tiny fractals of light catching in his eyes, shimmering golden. It’s dumb and cliché, and Gwen is so tired she can’t be totally sure she isn’t just imagining it. But she knows for sure that the slight upward quirk at the corner of Miles’ mouth, tilting into a lopsided smile as he speaks is entirely real.
It’s comforting and familiar and safe. It makes her stupidly happy and kind of makes her want to kiss him. Makes her want to thank him for being the one place that still feels like home.
Gwen kind of wishes she could tell him that.
Could she? She wonders.Miles has never had to tell her that she can tell him anything (or vice versa) because she knows that. She always has.
It didn’t send him running when she told him she’d been bitten by a radioactive spider that gave her super-strength and the ability to stick to walls like one of those gross sticky-hand toys at arcades, or that she was now living a double life as a crime fighting vigilante parading in a spidersuit through the city every night. So why would this?
“Hey, Miles…?”
He stops talking and looks at her.
She could tell him. She could tell him here and now. But then she thinks about how she and her dad can hardly stand to be in the same room anymore, how Harry will probably never speak to her again, how she can feel Em Jay’s growing resentment each time she’s late to rehearsals, and realizes she doesn’t want to take her chances with the last piece her life that hasn’t gone up in flames. Not yet.
Instead she gives him the most genuine smile she can manage, and says quietly, “Thanks.”
Miles’ half-smile lifts into a whole one. “Anytime.”
