Spider-Gwen || Caught in a Web

Impending || Owen Octavius

"Lately I'm beginning to find that I should be the one behind the wheel"

-Drive, Incubus

As Owen Octavius took his seat for class, that new feeling of uncertainty and unfamiliarity crept up his spine-an odd sensation of realizing that, once again, he would be attending a class where the teacher gave a lecture over Zoom. Never before had AP Chemistry been so strange.

He flipped his binder open, finding his notes section as he glanced at the door, watching his classmates file in. Normally they would have been chatting up a storm, especially with prom being less than a month away, but these were not normal circumstances. Far from it...

Owen remembered when he first heard the news-his father had been watching one of the local channels when it had immediately cut away, and Owen had been called over to see what all the fuss was about. Dr. Curtis Connors, formerly the chief geneticist for Oscorp, had been shot in an attempted bank robbery. The press had mentioned that oddball vigilante that had been running around the past few months, saying that she had been on the scene and prevented any further casualties.

But no confirmation of Connors's ultimate fate was given until the next day-he would live. As clarifying information poured in, it became known that Owen's teacher had only been shot in the arm. It required amputation and some intensive recovery, but he'd pushed through. Most people would probably take some extensive rest, maybe even a sabbatical from work... but no, not Dr. Connors. And that's how Owen had found himself waiting for his teacher to log onto the Zoom meeting so he could teach them remotely from his hospital bed.

He still had a few minutes... Owen's pencil found the margins of his notebook paper, and began to trace out whatever came to mind. There was nothing coherent... just anything that had been circling his mind as of late-an IV drip representing Dr. Connors, a catcher's mitt representing baseball practice on the horizon, a disco ball representing the prom... so on and so forth. And in the middle of it all, he began to write out the word tying them all together in as creative a font he could think up of.

"That looks really nice."

The unexpected voice made Owen jump, his shoulders tensing up as his head snapped in the direction of whomever had spoken. 

A pair of blue-grey eyes stared back at Owen, widening in surprise from his jumpy reaction. "Sorry, were you-" 

"No, it's fine." Owen sighed, the sudden jolt of anxiety wearing off quickly as he realized it was just Gwen Stacy. "Just... caught me off-guard, is all."

Owen watched as Gwen gave a sympathetic nod, her eyes turning back to the artwork on Owen's paper. He chuckled softly to himself, scooting the paper a little closer to the edge of his desk as Gwen leaned over to look. Even though Owen wasn't all about AP Chemistry-he was only here because his father insisted on it-at least there were some other students here that didn't have the personality of a wet paper bag. Owen didn't know Gwen really well, but he could tell that she was an oddly composed individual, despite how exhausted she seemed all the time.

"I think Connors is going to log on a little late today... figured I'd get some time to amuse myself." Owen said, using his pencil to gently add some shading to the stylized word at the center of all the random sketches-the word 'Impending.'

It had caught Gwen's curiosity, as Owen noticed her brow furrowing, and how her blue-grey eyes that always stood out in a crowd were focusing on the word. "Why 'Impending'?" Gwen asked, her eyes flicking up to meet Owen's gaze, and he shrugged in response.