Hold On Hope

Chapter 3

*author's note: the Amazing Spiderman movies haven't got enough information about Gwen to make a full story so I've made up a few random memories and things about her cos otherwise it'd be a pretty boring story*

The waiting room was too quiet. Peter tried to distract himself by thinking what he'd say to Gwen when she came out of the operating theatre. If... No, he couldn't go there. So he decided, first he'd kiss her. He couldn't think what he'd do next, it seemed too distant to fathom. Peter wished he'd brought his laptop and the memory stick with Gwen's graduation speech on it; a few lines kept circulating through his head. 'What makes life precious is that it ends', 'there will be dark days', 'hold on hope'. He repeated that one to himself and closed his eyes, his head in his hands. Hold on hope...it was so hard when Gwen was hope. He ran through every detail of her in his head, the way she always looked amazing even after she got that really bad haircut, the way she found him hysterically funny, the way that sometimes when he knocked on her window she'd be writing but she'd never let him read any of it. All the times he hurt her... All the times he'd left her because of her father and his promise... It was all coming true, all the things he swore he'd never let happen. Peter couldn't think about that, not yet, anyway, not while there was still a chance. Not while hope still lived on.

He got out his iPod to distract himself, but it didn't work; half the songs made him cry and the other half made him so angry that he and Gwen might not have a chance to be happy, together. Peter didn't know which would be worse, sitting here alone in the almost unbearable oblivion, or finding a nurse and getting bad news. Maybe. It might be good news, he told himself. Hold on hope.

Just as he decided to find some staff, to get some news on Gwen, a doctor walked in. 'You're Peter Parker?'

'Yeah, yeah, how is she? Is she okay? Tell me, I can cope, please...' He felt like he was about to break down crying right there in the hospital waiting room, and what's more, he didn't care. The doctor thinking he was emotionally unstable or something meant nothing compared to Gwen.

'She's alive.' Peter gasped. It felt better than soaring between skyscrapers on his webs, it felt better than being Spiderman. It felt like stars aligning. He knew there was more, that the doctor hadn't finished, but if Gwen was alive then nothing else mattered. 'We gave her resuscitation, she's breathing in time again for now, she's in a coma but she's expected to wake up in the next couple of days. She's got bruises all down her spine but no bones are broken. She's going to be alright.'

And Peter started to sob. Not apologetic, half-hearted crying, full on earth-shattering sobs of relief and love and hope. She's going to be alright. In that moment nothing could hurt Peter. Gwen was alive, and that's all that mattered.