Chapter Text
Did I mess that up? I’m starting to feel like I messed that up, Gwen thought.
Some guy with a balaclava fired a weird taser-gun at her, electricity building up before arching out in her direction, but of course Ghost-Spider came with Spider-Sense, and that alerted her to the danger with more than enough time to dodge mid-swing and alter the angle she was using to crash into these jerks.
Maybe I shouldn’t have even brought up Felicia. Ugh, but they asked about the makeover, and what was I going to say? That it was my idea? No one would believe that.
Smoke was still rising from the section of wall... wait, no, from the remains of a door where the explosion had gone off. Four guys in various states of hiding their faces were not ready when a bonafide superhero arrived on the scene, kicking one in the chest as two of the others started trying to corner her, grapple her, while the fourth aimed that high-tech weapon at her again.
Besides, I wanted MJ to know I have another girlfriend now. Wait, is Felicia my girlfriend? We haven’t talked about labels yet.
Trying to grapple someone with super strength is not easy. Trying to grapple someone with super strength and the ability to stick to anything is... well, you could have tried asking the bozos who’d just tried it, but they were both busy staggering away with bruised backs and egos.
Y’know what? I’ve had her tongue in my mouth. She’s my girlfriend. My extremely sexy, morally dubious girlfriend. I’ve... I’ve got two girlfriends.
Ghost-Spider planted her feet and rolled her shoulders, ready for another round, but evidently she’d vastly overestimated how badly these guys wanted to brawl. No, as soon as any of the ones who’d been knocked down got to their feet, they started to run, carrying bags and boxes and... while it was tempting to chase them down, there was apparently some sort of oil fire happening in the Hudson. Spidey was handling it, but he could always use another hand, right?
Should I have told Mary Jane about who Felicia really is? I feel bad keeping a secret from her. She knows about... well, all of it. Or at least all the Spider-stuff, and Felicia’s a part of that. Without her help, I wouldn’t be here.
She’d been about to leave when a flash of green in the corner of her eye caught her attention, so Ghost-Spider started to really look around, get a feel for this place those guys had been robbing. It seemed to be some sort of storage room, though why it was in a medical building, she didn’t know. Tubes full of green liquid, racks of orange devices in the shape of pumpkins, and a mannequin which had clearly just been holding a costume of some kind. Bad vibes, for sure.
No, that wouldn’t be fair to Felicia. Just because she let me in on her secret identity, doesn’t mean I can just go around outing to other people, not even Mary Jane.
After slipping her phone out of a pocket, Gwen took what photos she could of this stuff as quickly as her spider-gifts would let her, noted the address, and left the scene to zip off towards the disaster happening so close by. It had been a good idea to make a custom alert on her phone for local news stories about ‘disasters’ and ‘attacks’ and ‘supervillain’, even if sometimes it yielded a false positive or two. After all, today, it had given her the excuse she needed to leave early.
Besides, isn’t it normal for couples to have some secrets? We need our own lives, and it’s not like she knows everything about me. Unlike Felicia, she still has no idea I’m... wait, who is that?
In the middle of a half-finished construction site Ghost-Spider was coming up on was a figure, all in black, a white symbol in the middle of the chest. For just a second, the sight forced Gwen to remember that awful experience on Thanksgiving, of being held captive by a literal monster.
But this wasn’t Gwen, no, this was Ghost-Spider, and possible monster-sightings fell under her purview.
Rerouting to perch on a steel beam two stories up from the ground, Ghost-Spider had a front row seat as this guy started busting up a spot in the concrete floor, again and again, clearly after something.
And on closer inspection, he wasn’t a monster, he was just some guy wearing a painted ski mask and a sweater that definitely resembled the monster from the parade, but also clearly wasn’t said monster. There was no slathering tongue, no horribly inhuman eyes, no impending sense of doom.
What is this guy, some sort of monster fanboy?
“Yes, finally!!” The guy reached into the hole, pulling out some sort of bag tied closed, and began working at the knot, trying to open it.
Which is when a strand of webbing hit the side of the bag, before then tugging it out of the masked man’s grasp. “So, I’ve kind of got no context for this,” Ghost-Spider quipped as she grabbed the sack from mid-air, “but I’m going to go out on a limb and say this qualifies as ‘no good’, which you are up to. As a professional do-gooder, I’d be remiss in my duties if I didn’t foil whatever your plan was here.”
For a few seconds, the man just started up at her, eyes wide. Then he burst into action, running for the nearest scaffolding up to where Ghost-Spider had chosen to perch herself, and shouting, “No!!! Give it back!!!” in a voice that was at once enraged to the point of madness and also a little familiar.
Of course, before he could get anywhere close, Ghost-Spider just used her web-shooter to pull herself up another level, one currently without any ladder access. “Sorry pal, but I’m pretty good at playing keep-away. Wanna tell me what you’ve got here?” No sooner had she asked the question than something in the bag squirmed and writhed, its shape like nothing Gwen had ever felt before. She stared at the sack, confused. “Is this alive?”
“It’s mine!! It’s...” Once it sank in that there was no way for him to pursue any farther, the guy tried chucking the sledgehammer up at Ghost-Spider (missing by a country mile in the process), then fell to his knees and started to sob.
Leaving the matter of ‘What’s in the bag?’ for another time, Ghost-Spider crouched, looking down at the weirdo in the faux monster costume and feeling some undeniable pity. “Hey, this might sound weird but... are you doing okay? Is there anyone I should call?”
He shook his head. “No one... I have no one. You’ve taken the only one who cares about us...”
Of course it was only in that moment, as his voice finally clicked for Gwen, that he ran off.
“Eddie?” The bottom fell out of her stomach. “N-no that couldn’t... what would Eddie be doing mixed up with that monster?” She hadn’t heard from Eddie Brock in months, no one had, it wouldn’t make any sense for that to be him.
Whatever was in the bag suddenly lurched, straining to escape, but whoever had sealed it inside had done a good job, it wasn’t going anywhere. Looking to the mystery sack, eyes narrowing, Gwen decided this was definitely something she was going to have to hold onto.
As it turned out, the oil disaster was already taken care of while Gwen dilly-dallied, and it wasn’t like Gwen was eager to head back to Flash’s party to be interrogated about her girlfriend or her sexuality further, so she just went home, slipping into her bedroom window and poking her head out of the door, mask off. As planned, her dad was out, working on some case related to Doc Ock, which meant Gwen had the run of the apartment to herself.
“Okay,” she thought, looking at the strange amorphous lump in the bag, slowly and methodically untying the knot that held it in check, “let’s see what Eddie was so desperate to get back...”
It didn’t take long to get the bag open, and find out exactly what was inside.