The Amazing Spider-Man 3

Chapter 16

That night, Gwen and I were sitting together on a building. The night breeze tickled our cheeks, tossing Gwen's hair behind her.

She didn't need my help to get up there.

"Why did you do this, Gwen?" I asked.

"It was the only way that you would allow yourself to be with me," she replied.

"Gwen...what have you done?"

"I'm like you now, Peter! Now I can be safe like you wanted!"

"You don't understand, Gwen! The reason you were endangered in the first place was because I had enemies! Enemies that you will have now, too!"

"Maybe I want this."

"You almost died. Now you want to put yourself in even more danger?"

"'What makes life valuable is that it doesn't last forever. What makes it precious is that it ends,'" Gwen began to quote her valedictorian speech. The speech that I had listened to every day since she'd left.

"Gwen..." I tried to interject. She kept talking.

"'I know that now more than ever, and I say it, today of all days, to remind us that time is luck," she continued. "So don't waste it living someone else's life. Make yours count for something. Fight for what matters to you, no matter what. Because even if we fall short...'"

"'What better way is there to live?'" We both said it together. I tipped my head, looking down at the streets below.

"This is my life. I can do with it whatever I choose. You are what matters to me, and I'm going to fight for you. This is my life, with you. Someone else went to Oxford. That's their life, not mine," she explained.

I sighed. Good old Gwen, willing to shorten her life to get what she truly wants. That's one of the things I love about her.

"I love you, Peter," she said.

"I love you too," I reached for her face. I put my hands around her cheeks, rubbing my thumbs across her cheekbones the way she always liked it. Then I leaned over and kissed her.

It had been over a year since I'd kissed her. I sure had missed it. Nobody kissed like Gwen, not even Mary Jane.

We kissed for what felt like forever. Eventually, we parted, and Gwen leaned her head against my chest.

"How did you do it?" I asked. She looked back up at me.

"I never went to Oxford," she said.

"All of those texts from England were lies?" I questioned.

"Yes. I never went to London, but I was always busy...researching, testing, experimenting..." She said.

"And?" I said.

"All of the spider research had been erased from Oscorp's records, except for the spider venom. I didn't really need the venom, anyway," she explained. "Instead, I went to Roosevelt. Your father had stored a lot of research there, almost enough for step-by-step instructions on how to create the spiders. There were only a few holes in his research, which I managed to fill in a couple of months.

"Then, I started creating the spiders. I did everything that your father did, except, instead of inserting his DNA, I inserted my own."

"So then you got one to bite you, and it worked," I finished the story for her.

"Yes," she confirmed. "And making the web shooters wasn't hard."

"You know Gwen, you are such a genius!" I told her. "But you're also an idiot." She rolled her eyes at me.

---

She really could do everything that I could do. It was actually very scary. She could shoot webs, she had spectacular reflexes, she had spider senses, she was abnormally strong, she could stick to things, and she could heal more quickly.

What had happened to my precious, gentle Gwen? Now she was tough Gwen. Not that it was a bad thing, but now I had nothing to protect. I felt an emptiness inside me, something that I had lost.

We swung through the city together. My arms felt empty. I no longer had to carry her. She could swing on her own.

We climbed the side of a building together. She climbed skillfully; her hands and feet stuck to the walls like mine. She could climb on her own.

We had a battle on the top of a building roof. I threw a water bottle at her from behind. She turned and caught it when it was inches from her face. She threw it back at me, and I caught it with a web, slinging it back at her. She ducked, and it sailed over her head. Then she caught it with her webs as well, swinging it back to me.

We did that several more times, then Gwen insisted that we had a little hand-to-hand combat.

"I will not have a fistfight with my girlfriend!" I refused.

"Ohhh...so we're back together now, huh?" She grinned.

"Do you not want to be or something?" I asked jokingly.

"No. I do," she said, then threw a punch. I dodged it.

"If you want to fight, you've got to try harder than that," I laughed. She tried again, only to hit air. I did a backflip as she ran towards me. She shot a web at me. "Hey! No webs allowed!" She rolled her eyes and took it back.

I reached for her arm, but she moved it out of the way so she could smack me in the face.

"I can't believe you just hit me," I said, leaping out of the way.

"I don't like to be predictable," she replied.

We dodged each other for a couple more minutes. Then, I did a flip over her head. She turned around to face me, but I was already gone. Then I was behind her again.

I made my move. Her spider senses notified her quickly enough for her to turn her head, but she was a split-second too late in snatching her arm out of the way. I grabbed it, holding her still.

"Fine, you win," she groaned. I smiled widely, then released her arm. "Psych!" She shouted, then gave me another slap in the face. I fell to the roof from the impact. She placed her foot on my chest, pinning me down.

"I win," she said.

"I'm pretty sure that's against the rules," I pointed out, still lying on the roof.

"Well you should have said so before we started," she said. Then we laughed.

"So are you going to let me up, now?" I asked.

"I don't know. It feels pretty good when I have the power to hold you down."

"Gwen, let me up."

"Not yet."

"Gwen."

"Nope."

"Gwen!"