Spider-Gwen 3 || The Fall

If She Stayed || Felicia Hardy

"Alive means to be dead"

-Animosity, The Warning

At long last, Felicia Hardy was going to get some rest.

About time... she thought, swept up the final few bits of rubble that were on the floor of her apartment before dumping them into her trashcan. It had been several days since the symbiote had broken through her apartment wall and trashed her apartment, but only now had she been able to finally get things as normal as possible.

Felicia looked up at the several pieces of drywall that she'd hammered over the hole in her apartment wall for the time being-Ditkovich was probably going to take forever to get someone to truly fix it, so this temporary band-aid for her housing would have to do for now.

The young woman stretched her arms out as she walked to her sofa, then let herself flop face first onto the cushions to decompress.

Ahhhhh...

Days' worth of stress seemed to drain out of her system, and the welcome softness and warmth of her sofa made Felicia feel like she was never going to get off of it. This right here... THIS truly is the life.

Felicia rolled onto her back, sighing peacefully as she reached between the cushions. Eventually, she found what she was looking for-the remote control. Ordinarily she would pull up a Netflix special on her laptop, but she was enjoying the couch too much to get up and grab her computer.

I wonder what's going on with Oscorp... Felicia wondered. Ever since her jam session with Gwen and MJ, she hadn't kept up with the news about the ongoing fighting between the NYPD and Oscorp. She was hoping for some good news on that front to continue a delightfully relaxing day...

But it was anything but that. As soon as Felicia flipped on the local news channel, she was shown aerial footage of a an empty street downtown-her jaw dropped as the footage showed a hulking, familiarly slimy monster dashing at Ghost Spider, who would throw something out of her backpack that stunned the beast before she turned her attention on her other opponent: Otto Octavius.

The headline below the footage read: OSCORP FORCES DEFEATED BY DOC OCK AND ACCOMPLICE-LOCAL THREATS NOW ATTEMPTING TO FIGHT GHOST SPIDER.

As Felicia watched this scene continue, the remote fell from her hand and clattered on the floor. She could tell that something was off with Gwen... she wasn't moving as quickly and gracefully as usual, and she wasn't even attempting to engage with her opponents, instead keeping a distance and using gadgets to keep them at bay.

"We now turn to one of New York's most prominent voices on Ghost Spider and Doc Ock: Mr. J. Jonah Jameson, who is calling in from..." the news anchor, Gloria Gant, informed, and Felicia felt her blood begin to boil at the thought of that Gwen-hating loudmouth. "Mr. Jameson, your thoughts on this extraordinarily intense situation?"

"It's all a show, people!!" Jameson's rough voice came in through an answering device. "I tell you what, Miss Hant , this is-"

"It's Miss Gant-"

"-Same thing!! This is no intense situation at all, people-it's all an absolute SCAM by Ghost Spider, who is CLEARLY working alongside Doc Ock and that walking pile of crude oil to get some television coverage!! See how she's not even trying to throw a fist at them-"

"Get over yourself, Jameson!!" Felicia yelled, quickly hitting mute on the television. Her eyes watched as the aerial footage continued, with the monster-clearly the symbiote, Felicia would know-writhing in pain on the ground as Gwen attempted to strafe Doc Ock, whose legs were caught in webbing once again. Still, Gwen didn't try to jump or web-swing herself close to land some punches on them.