Spider-Gwen 3 || The Fall

What Now || Gwen Stacy

"That's the kind of love I've been dreaming of"

-Dinner and Diatribes, Hozier

Gwen had taken a seat in the corner of the room, her arms drawn tightly around her shoulders as she hid her face in her knees. Every second that she sat in silence, the only thing accompanying the beating of her heart was a question that played itself in her head over and over again.

What now?

She felt completely helpless-there was no feasible way that she could get herself out of this space. Jeff Morales was unconscious and trapped in his suspension ring-not that it would've mattered if he was free anyways.

It felt so wrong... Gwen had suffered so greatly, had so much taken from her, just for it to end with her sidelined for whatever came next. Her hands scrunched the fabric of her spider-suit between her fingers, a suit that ultimately meant nothing now without her powers.

What now?

It wasn't in Gwen's nature to give up... the last time she'd given up had been the aftermath of the Midtown Prom Incident, and that had been an exceptionally poor choice in hindsight. She'd relied on her own emotions to make a decision that ended in the incident, continued to rely on them when giving up the mantle of the city's protector, and had once again relied on only herself when dealing with the symbiote.

There seems to be a pattern here, Stacy. She scolded herself. But what else was she to turn to...?

A muffled groan came from the other end of the room, and Gwen lifted her head slightly to see Jeff beginning to stir. "Jeff..." Gwen croaked, feeling surprise at the raspiness of her throat as she spoke. The blonde got up, her feet feeling like cinder blocks as she walked over to him.

"Ugh... hey, kid." Jeff mumbled, shaking his head slightly to help wake himself up. "Mind filling me in on what's happening?"

This is going to be quite an info dump, Gwen thought to herself as she hugged her waist and bit her lip. "Oscorp knocked me out while I was going after the symbiote-"

"The thing that crashed through the wall??" Jeff asked, and Gwen nodded.

"Otto, he... he'd been keeping his son in some fluids to preserve him." She said, her tone dark as she looked at the floor. "The symbiote had been planning to bond with Owen's body for the past month... and we all walked right into its trap to deliver it to Otto."

Jeff had to think through what she was explaining. "So... the symbiote can bond with a dead body?"

"Yeah..."

"And he's... alive?"

That was a topic that Gwen had been pondering when she'd given chase to Owen. The young woman shook her head, really debating the question. Owen had certainly looked alive. He'd acted alive... was it possible that the symbiote was able to fully resurrect the dead?

It seemed so far-fetched... Owen had looked alive, but the ensuing transformation into that... that thing... seemed to indicate that the symbiote was in total control.

Then again, Gwen had done similar stuff when the symbiote had bonded with her, though it took longer for the organism to fully control her.

"I don't know." Gwen finally answered. Her voice was light and exasperated, and she took a deep breath before continuing to give the exposition. "I woke up in here, they'd captured you and I... Norman showed me a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff about the spider that bit me." She told Jeff, feeling a lump welling up in her throat. "Oscorp had planned that... all along, they've been manipulating stuff to test the extent of the abilities that the spider gave me-"