Spider-Gwen 2 || Hanging by a Thread

Swing By || Gwen Stacy

"I wanna' write her name in the sky"

-Free Fallin', Tom Petty

Gwen hadn't set her alarm last night... it was the weekend, and she had been certain that she was going to wake up in total soreness after her battle with Black Cat. She was only waking up now due to the sunlight streaming through her window blinds.

The blonde felt the familiar wave of disappointment at having to wake up flow through her-another day of fighting off all the bad memories and present conflicts that threatened to swallow her whole awaited. But to Gwen's surprise, she wasn't sore. She actually felt... well-rested.

Her eyes popped open, and her brow immediately furrowed at how well she felt. This wasn't how her mornings tended to start...

Gwen sat up in bed, expecting to hear her back or joints popping... nothing. Man, the regenerative healing was in overdrive last night, she thought to herself, swinging her legs over the side of the bed before standing up. Her spider-suit was still carelessly slung onto her desk, exactly where she'd tossed it due to wanting to go to bed immediately last night. 

She picked up the suit, thinking back to the oddities that surrounded the fabric now... that black ooze that she'd ripped off of Felicia had seemed to cover the suit while Gwen had been wearing it, but once she'd gotten out of it, the suit was back to its normal appearance. Whatever that thing was... it had bonded with her physical form somehow.

Something else for the to-do list: evict the sentient black goo from my body. Gwen thought to herself, folding up the suit before tucking it under her bed.

She headed towards her bathroom, cutting the lights on before reaching forward to open the mirror for her Effexor medication-but Gwen stopped herself, as her current outfit was... not what she'd been expecting.

Gwen could have sworn that she'd slipped into some white sweatpants and an oversized, vibrantly colored band tee before going to bed. But she was wearing sweatpants and a large shirt that were jet black, with white at the seams.

Did I seriously forget what I wore to bed? Or is the black goo just a 24/7 image consultant?

Wanting to test the theory out, Gwen began to step out of her sweatpants to see what would happen to them. She felt the slightest bit of self-consciousness creep into her system, despite the facts that she was alone and that the oversized shirt was over her thighs. Sure enough, the black color faded from the sweatpants, turning into familiar tendrils that rapidly crawled to Gwen's legs before vanishing.

Um... yuck.

She picked up the sweatpants and threw them into her laundry hamper since she was going to change later anyways. Shoving her 'fashion issues' to the side for now, Gwen opened the mirror above her sink and grabbed the bottle of Effexor. She popped the lid off and dumped a lone tablet of the antidepressant into her hand before swallowing it dry.

Once she'd put the bottle back and grabbed her toothpaste and toothbrush, her hand grabbed and closed the mirror. Gwen's eyes quickly went to her reflection, staring at it for a moment. Gwen still looked pretty frail and unhealthy... eighteen months of neglecting to eat consistently tended to have those effects on a person. She stepped backwards to get a full view of herself, and the way the oversized shirt hung from her frame just looked so... terrible. Gwen felt her throat tighten, and her hand went to her arm as the insecurity over her appearance began to flare up.

You used to look way better in high school, Gwen told herself, biting her lip as she looked away from her reflection. She had always been on the more lithe side, but Gwen was a lot lighter now. And she didn't like it one bit.