Ultimate Spider-Woman: Change With the Light

Chapter 98: You May Now Kill The Bride

Randy Robertson bore down on the last player between him and the opposing net. Sweat poured down on his face as he considered whether to take the shot with an opposing player still blocking his way, especially since he had two more coming up behind him.

The opposing player in front of Randy gave him the answer. The opposing player mistimed his charge, allowing Randy to quickly sidestep him and jump up for the dunk.

All three of the opposing players around Randy cursed as he scored, none too pleased that they were now down by seven points.

"Nothing but net!" Randy said as he came back to high-five his teammates. He turned around to regard his opponents, a wide smile crossing his face.

"What was that you were saying about this being your house?" Randy said, as several of his teammates threw taunts of their own at the opposing team.

The opponent who'd tried to block Randy gestured to Randy to bring it before he charged, his dribbling hands moving almost as fast as his feet.

Sitting on the sidelines, Gwen Stacy cheered Randy as he stole the ball and passed to one of his teammates. Gwen was very proud of Randy, not just for the fifteen points he'd scored so far, but also for the role he'd played in organizing this charity tournament. The tournament was a fundraiser for lower-income New York neighborhoods damaged by costumed supervillains. The supervillains that infested New York like a plague were infamous for the economic damage their criminal activities caused, and lower-income neighborhoods often had a harder time recovering from supervillain rampages.

Gwen was all too familiar with what supervillains could do. She was one of those rare costumed individuals who actually tried to stop crimes rather than commit them, in her heroic identity as the spectacular Spider-Woman. In nearly two and a half years of fighting crime, Gwen had defeated dozens of supervillains, but not before they'd shown just why charitable activities like this tournament were badly needed.

Gwen helped Randy with things like promoting the tournament over social media, preparing refreshments for the players and gathering donations, but this was Randy's show. He said he was following in the proud tradition of players like Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Jordan, but in Gwen's mind none of those former basketball greats compared to hm.

That wasn't the only place where Randy stood out for Gwen. There were plenty of cute guys to admire at the tournament, but none of them could match Randy.

Randy said that Gwen's smile made his heart pound.

Seeing Randy on the court, the muscles of his perfectly sculpted figure rippling as he played his heart out, Gwen suddenly realized what Randy felt when she smiled at him.

ULTIMATE SPIDER-WOMAN #98

YOU MAY NOW KILL THE BRIDE

"Thanks for coming with me today, Gwen," Liz Allen said to Gwen as they left the bridal shop. "I would have been lost without you."

"It's fine, really," Gwen said with a smile. "And don't sell yourself short-you would have found what you were looking for on your own."

"Yeah, but I don't want to think about how much time I would have wasted in those first two shops," Liz said. "You know these things a lot better than I do."

"Which brings me to the next thing we need to think about," Gwen said. "You still need to think about your accessories. Remember the old rhyme about something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue?"

Liz thought about that for several minutes as the girls descended the steps into the subway station.

"Well, I have these sapphire earrings I got for my sixteenth birthday, so that's something blue," Liz said, indicating her ears. "And Harry got me a bracelet for our one-year anniversary, so that's something new. For something old, I could wear the crucifix I got from my Grandma when I was five…I don't know what to borrow, though."