Spider-Gwen 2 || Hanging by a Thread

Epilogue

"When you gonna' make up your mind? When you gonna' love you as much as I do?"

-Winter, Tori Amos

Silence.

That was the only thing Gwen Stacy felt through any of her senses as she sat at the kitchen table. The young woman had removed her damaged mask, but had her cowl over her head as she stayed slouched in the chair that had become 'hers' with time. Gwen looked down at her trembling hand as it rested beside a familiar bottle of liquor on the tabletop.

You're going to have to look up eventually.

Gwen shut her eyes as the symbiote spoke to her-it had survived her brush with death, and was currently working to heal the soreness in her bones from the violent electrocution that she'd suffered. But there was one thing that had happened to her that even the symbiote could not heal...

Look up.

She squeezed her eyes harder, knowing what was going to happen if she looked up. But it was right... Gwen was not going to be able to avoid reality forever.

Gwen's eyes fluttered open halfheartedly, and she chewed on her lip as her head slowly tilted upwards while her fingers rattled on the table from their trembling that refused to cease. And there before her, beyond the bottle that her father had been wrestling with for so long, was the reason that she was shaking.

Her father's kitchen chair. Now empty forever.

The sight forced tears to her eyes, and her lips formed a pout that only came with immense pain. Dad...

In the moments following the end of the showdown with Otto, Gwen had gone completely numb. No tears, no sobs... no movement at all. Miles had cleaned her father's blood from her face and tried earnestly to get her to talk, but nothing had worked. Gwen had slowly stared ahead at nothing, then left before the police came since her mask was damaged and she couldn't afford for them to figure out who she really was.

She'd been forced to leave her father there after watching him die with her own eyes.

So many memories had been formed at this table-memories of life lessons from her parents, conversations about silly happenings during the day, family board games on Friday nights... but only one of them was present in Gwen's mind in this moment.

"I spent the last year and a half in a living hell because I didn't know who I could trust anymore... because I didn't know who you were to me. But I know the truth now: you're not a hero. You're not a good man."

"You're not my father. And you have no one to blame but yourself."

"Why don't you go hit the bottle to make it go away? Since that's all you seem to want to do nowadays... just give in and make both our lives a whole lot easier."

Gwen pulled her legs up into her chair, hugging them to her chest and cowering as the hateful things she'd said to the person that had loved her most fired through her brain again and again. As hard as she tried to pin the animosity on the symbiote... she knew the truth: deep down, those feelings had been bubbling inside of her own heart. The symbiote had simply amplified the mistrust and betrayal she'd felt towards her father.

You were right to feel that way. Remember what he did to you-

"Shut up." Gwen growled, her fingers angrily gripping the slick suit that covered her knees. A tear trickled down her cheek as she lifted her head once again-and was met immediately with the liquor bottle.