The Van Dyne Building was the pinkest building in New York City in all probability. Forty stories of mirrored pink windows reflecting the avenue's traffic back at itself in long, purple smears. Colour theory was carefully considered for this building.
The memories of the android Henton were downloaded and currently being examined by Hobie and the others. The Big Man himself had not yet arrived.
'There's only one thing left now to do.'
A doorman in a charcoal uniform held the door for Felix. "Thank you," Felix said. The lobby was red and pink and purple. The carpet was entirely black and it was super, mega busy. Holy, it put Oscorp in its prime to shame.
"Excuse me!"
"Pardon me!"
Felix was bumped into twice just by entering the damn lobby. And there were so many clothes, he was fortunate to have superpowers or else it would have been information overload.
"Alright, let's just go," Felix murmured. He had a quick talk with the secretary. It took no time at all for the secretary to understand he was indeed supposed to be here. An elevator ride to the fortieth floor required a badge and an appointment, both of which he had courtesy of Jennifer Walters.
The elevator doors opened directly into a reception floor that looked less like an office and more like the inside of a very expensive jewelry box. White walls, white orchids in white ceramic vases, and a floor so glossy it nearly mirrored the ceiling. It was a little greasy with how much it was wiped. Felix grimaced.
A woman in a super-flattering, super tight black dress was awaiting. She also had an earpiece and she was not talking to him when she said: "He's here. Yes. No, I told him that too." A pause, a wince, and the young woman addressed Felix. "She said fifteen minutes. Not one more."
"I know. I expected as much." Felix was led down a long white corridor lined with framed magazine covers, decades of them, models in couture he couldn't name, headlines in fonts too elegant to be readable at a glance, until they reached a set of frosted glass doors that opened onto an office the size of a small aircraft hangar.
'Talk about over the top style. So much nonsense. Can't this be classified as a waste of money?' Although saying that, he imagined a bunch of women glaring at him for that. The fashion industry was a terrifying, egotistical place, and to some extent, he understood why. Some of it did look cool.
Not to mention this was the home of the billionaire fashion mogul, Janet Van Dyne.
Janet Van Dyne's office was not at all an office. Offices did not have racks of unfinished garments along one wall or swatches of fabric pinned to a corkboard the size of a compact car. There was a single pristine white desk and that was it. The only semblance of an "office".
The white desk sat in front of floor-to-ceiling windows and framed the entirety of Central Park like a painting hung specifically for her benefit. Two assistants hovered near the desk with tablets clutched to their chests, and a third stood adjusting the drape of a mannequin's half-finished gown, pins held between her lips.
Janet herself sat behind the desk, reading glasses pushed up into her silver hair. If she was in her sixties, she looked closer to be in her fifties.
Janet did not look up when Felix entered. She flipped through a stack of fabric swatches with brisk disinterest.
"You have twelve minutes now," Janet said, still flipping swatches. "I gave you fifteen. You spent three walking down my hallway too slowly."
"Noted."
Felix was not one to be intimidated by these types anymore.
"This is a highly unusual appointment, Mr. Faeth." Now Janet looked up, sharp blue eyes assessing him over the rim of her glasses. Ha, she was one of those that priced a person's entire life in the first three seconds of meeting them. "I do not take meetings with Oscorp representatives. I do not take meetings with anyone, generally, who isn't already on my calendar eight months in advance. I made an exception today for exactly one reason, and that reason is Jennifer Walters told me that this was an emergency."
"I appreciate it."
"Don't. I still don't know what you want." Janet set the swatches down, folding her hands atop the desk, gaze flicking once over his suit. She did not like it. "So tell me quickly. What does an Oscorp man want from a fashion house?"
"I want to save Gwen Stacy."
The room went very still. One of the assistants near the mannequin froze mid-pin. The one with the tablet stopped scrolling entirely. Janet herself did not move for a long moment.
Then, without raising her voice at all, Janet said, "Everyone out."
The assistants moved immediately, pins and tablets and swatches abandoned mid-task, filing out through the frosted doors with the kind of speed that came from long practice. The doors clicked shut behind the last of them, and the office fell into a silence.
"Jennifer sent you…for this?" There was this look from Janet. "Then this isn't a joke."
"It's not."
Janet rose from her chair, walked to the window, and looked out over the park for a moment before speaking again.
"That girl." Janet had changed, some of the brisk armor gone out of her. "I made her her first web-shooters. Did you know that?"
"I know."
Janet turned back to face him fully now, arms crossed, the reading glasses finally coming off entirely.
"Time is such a strange thing. Once upon a time, I was a model, then a hero, and after all that, I became this. I never thought I would get exposed for vigilantism. But…time lets no one off the hook. Unlike her, thankfully, I had the money and resources to pay my way out. As a matter of fact, it became my brand. I offered to do the same but…" Janet exhaled. "She told me she wanted to go there. It was her punishment, she said."
"But this isn't."
"The law is the law."
Felix made a face. "You know that isn't true. You know the law isn't some absolute thing to be upholded. It's ever-changing. It's flawed. And for justice, sometimes, it needs to be exploited."
"What do you suggest we do then?" Janet snapped. "I'm old and I'm into fashion. And you…" She sneered at him. "What do you do, exactly?"
She probably had never heard of him before this.
"For the record, my name is Felix Faeth, and the choice to help, anyone can do it. Even you. Put out a public statement. Do something."
"..."
"If you can't even do that, if you're too scared to take a stance, then at least tell me about Program Nest."
Janet's eyes narrowed. "What in the world do you need to know that for?"
"Because I think I can use it to save Gwen. Forever."
Up and down, up and down. Janet couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You're crazy. It'll never work. Not with her condition."
Felix smiled. "Let's wait and see, shall we?"
***
TEN DAYS LATER - GWEN STACY POV
The great underwater prison. Escaping it was impossible, they said. So many levels, so many details and security measures.
'Where am I going?'
That was the question that kept echoing in Gwen Stacy's mind.
Nobody had explained it. Two guards had simply arrived at her cell that morning with a folder and a set of civilian clothes and told her to change. She was put into a special, sealing standing wheelchair, and entered a submarine, all the while blindfolded and cuffed.
She had no idea where she was or where she was going until the blindfold was finally taken off. Gwen, miraculously, sucked in fresh air. She was in the middle of grasslands. Miles off, there was a town in the distance. However, there was no question this was far, far away from the sea or urban areas.
"..."
Gwen was a pretty girl without much of a smile and hefty bags. Blonde hair falling down her shoulders, slightly overgrown yet smooth nonetheless. Three vans stood idle. There was the natural temptation to break free of her cuffs and to flee from these mysterious vans.
Unfortunately, Gwen couldn't break out of it even if she wanted to. This was Adamantium and her hands were sealed in totality by them. Blocky and shaped like two huge humps. Tiny zig-zags of blue cracked through it. That was the mechanism to disengage, which it would not anytime soon. The feet were peculiar. They were chained-up, one of a kind shoes. Hence why she couldn't just jump and flee. The chains messed with her equilibrium and stopped her legs from stretching, and the shoes themselves weighed a ton and were calibrated on the soles to prevent momentum from launching her. She could hardly walk; it was more of a waddle, hence why the people vanguarding her pushed her in a standing wheelchair.
There were wheels, a metallic back, straps around her chest.
'Why?'
Why do all this? That was the question she asked again and again too. Gwen Stacy was a danger. A menace, if J. Jonah Jameson was to put it. He wasn't wrong. Gwen agreed.
"We will be entering the van now, Ms. Stacy."
While blindfolded, Gwen recognized the voice of the woman that had been pushing her this whole time: Dr. Madelyne Pryor. She had a semi-thick Irish accent. Really, there was no confusing it. She had been with Gwen her whole time down in the underwater prison.
"...okay. But I'd really like to know where we are going," Gwen replied. There was a throatiness in her voice.
"We'll have time to talk in the van," said Madelyne Pryo.
Three vans, all nondescript, all idling with drivers already behind the wheel. Gwen was rolled into the middle van like she was a hospital patient, flat and everything.
"Are you okay? If your head is hurting, then—"
"I'm fine," Gwen said quickly.
Truly, Gwen did not mind. She had been in worse positions before. Dr. Pryor smiled and told the driver to get going. The first van pulled out ahead of them, presumably empty or full of decoy cargo. This was a whole escort mission.
Dr. Pryor was looking down on her, seated on a bench bolted to the side. She was a pretty woman
"Is this really SHIELD?" Gwen croaked out. That was what she wanted to ask the most. That was the grand fear she had.
SHIELD. SHIELD.
SHIELD…!
In these cuffs, her fists were always clenched. Yet, they clenched even tighter and she could taste blood in her mouth. It was but a memory, not reality, but it seeped into her.
"No. You are being transferred under military supervision."
For anyone else, that would have been worse or the same. For Gwen? She let out a breath.
"Thank you for telling me, Doctor."
"I told you from the start, I'm not here to hurt you."
"A lot of people have said that to me," said Gwen. "They always lied."
To that, Dr. Pyro did not know how to reply.
"I know this isn't…ideal," said the doctor. "But I do want to tell you what your next circumstances will be. You won't be chained up like this. You'll be more free."
"There's a but, isn't there?" Gwen said with a blank expression.
"Yes, you will be monitored heavily. And…" Dr. Pyro gestured to the Adamantium chain-shoes. They were silver in colour with the same blue zig-zag lines that implied a mechanism. "You will have to wear that."
"...okay."
Gwen accepted that.
"These Adamantium shoes, we call them the Anti-Power Shoes. It tracks location and, more relevantly to your situation, biometric spikes consistent with symbiotic activation." Dr. Pyro said it without judgment or excitement. Nothing like the doctors of old. Gwen shut her eyes trying to forget it. "It cannot suppress the bond, of course. Nothing currently can. It can only tell people where you are and how close you might be to losing control of it."
Gwen looked down at her own wrist instead, where red veins still lived beneath her skin, dormant, patient, hers whether she wanted them or not. The Symbiote had never left. Perhaps due to literally fighting a monster Symbiote-Hulk, the strongest creature she had ever seen, or perhaps due to the healthy food she was administered by Dr. Pyro, but it wasn't lashing it. Gwen wasn't hungry for Dr. Pyro's flesh.
…at least right now.
"I still feel dangerous," Gwen said quietly, before she'd quite decided to say it out loud.
"You are dangerous." Dr. Pyro said this without cruelty, only fact. "That's not an insult, Ms. Stacy. Even those sympathetic to you have all agreed on. The question was never whether you're dangerous. The question was what to do with that fact."
"Sypmathetic to me…?"
That was new. That was the first time Dr. Pyro mentioned that. At long last, Gwen's head tilted to look at the doctor and not the van ceiling. She was met with a smile.
"You will see."
"...are you saying people want to forgive me?" Gwen asked.
The van merged onto the interstate, Norfolk's low gray skyline shrinking in the side mirror. Salt marsh and pine gave way to strip malls and overpasses as they turned north.
"The property damage alone from the incident exceeded four million dollars," Dr. Pyro continued, scrolling through the tablet. "Helicopters and collapsed structures. Two ruptured gas mains. A highway overpass that required full reconstruction. That's before we account for the injuries."
"...I'm sorry."
She understood as a normal young girl herself that even though no one had died (aside from Bruce Banner), the infrastructure was important. That it meant something.
"Everyone knows that. Everyone knows that."
Gwen's eyes lifted at that.
"There have been protests," Dr. Pyro said. "Thus, a significant portion of public sentiment has shifted in your favor over the past several months, largely due to your age at the time you first took up the Spider-Woman identity, and the circumstances surrounding it. Most of all, you aren't the only one."
That shocked her again. "Really?"
"Yes. Some folks in that prison were not rightfully there. The people voiced it, there were some orders from high-up, and there has been a new initiative to have people like you specially contained."
"S-so what, the public knows."
"Yes. It was announced yesterday by the president himself." That earned parted lips from Gwen. Dr. Pyro explained, "The FBI and military will be working on this custody arrangement, effective today, contingent on a number of conditions we'll review once you're settled."
"S-so I'm going to be living somewhere? But where?"
"New Jersey."
The van drove for another hour and a half, the highway thinning into surface streets, streets thinning further into residential grid. The van finally slowed outside a squat. An unremarkable brick apartment building on a quiet street lined with maples not yet in bloom. Every mid-sized American town had it. It was four stories with a faded awning over the entrance reading nothing but the building's number: 65.
There was a corner deli across the street with a hand-painted sign, a laundromat two doors down, and a scattering of parked cars. Quite literally, this was the most "town" place ever. The most stereotypical location for people with unremarkable jobs and unremarkable lives. By every visible measure, ordinary life.
Gwen still wasn't granted the ability to walk herself. She was pulled out and then lifted. Straps were tugged on to make sure they were good, Dr. Pyro double-checked her tablet on the status of the cuffs and Anti-Power Shoes, and she was driven over.
The plain glass door automatically opened into a lobby. Suddenly, Gwen felt like she was back in her childhood. This was an oldschool apartment with the radiator heat and mailboxes lining one wall and a single elevator with a hand-lettered OUT OF ORDER sign taped over the call button. Dr. Pyro hovered a keycard over the elevator button, the elevator opened, and they descended one flight to the basement level.
The elevator opened. The vibe suddenly changed. The childhood aspect was gone, even though there were some remnants of it. The hallway was a humble red carpet, very much not fancy, and lit by recessed fixtures instead of the lobby's fluorescents, doors spaced evenly along it with numbers. It felt less like a basement and more like a corridor built inside a corridor, a building within a building that only some of the residents upstairs likely knew existed.
They stopped outside a door marked B4. It was Dr. Pyro, Gwen, and two mysterious bodyguards in black suits.
To her shock, Dr. Pyro started pulling apart the straps. Gwen did a double-take. "W-what are you doing? You shouldn't, I'll—"
"You had several professionals check up on you, and we've concluded you're the second most mentally stable among the people that were in that prison. It's why you were taken out second too. It's why…" Leg straps, chest straps, one by one, they were coming off and Gwen was getting scared. "This is what we can offer you."
Freedom? True freedom?
When was the last time she had been truly free?
"B-but…"
"Take that first step, Gwen."
The straps were off. The huge Adamantium cuffs and shoes were still on. This was still restrictive. But…to be able to stand on her own was strange. Gwen gulped, sweaty and nervous.
Dr. Pyro dangled keys in front of her, smiling, and used it to open the door. The door opened and led to a second, metallic-white door. Dr. Pyro got out a keycard and waved it over what should have been the door knob.
Hisssss!
The metallic door opened.
Gwen wasn't sure what to expect. It wasn't this though, and her lips parted wide open. She blanked out.
"W-what? It can't be…?"
There was a whole new home for her. Despite that, she didn't care. She couldn't. Halfway risen from a couch, like he hadn't quite believed the knock at the door was real until this exact second, was her father George Stacy. His hair was short, but blonde just like hers. His brows were slightly long, just like hers.
"D-Dad?"
"Gwen! Gwen! Oh god, you're really here!" Tears immediately spilled out and George Stacy's wrinkled shows as she went through an array of emotions. But as his eyes found her, they filled instantly with joy. He pinched the bridge of his nose, stopping the tears, and whatever he'd been about to say caught somewhere in his throat and never made it out as words. "Gwen…!"
"Dad…"
Gwen's own eyes couldn't stop watering up. She waddled forward and almost tripped. Fortunately, Dr. Pyro was there to catch her. The father crossed the living room and pulled her into his arms, wrapping around her so tightly that pain couldn't possibly exist. Only love.
"I-I didn't think," he said into her hair, voice rough and cracking, "I genuinely didn't think you'd ever come back. I hoped. God, I hoped every single day. But I didn't think…especially not this soon…!"
"I'm here." It was all Gwen could manage, muffled against his shoulder, her own eyes stinging hot and sudden. "I'm here, Dad."
"I know. I know you are." George pulled back just far enough to look at her properly, both hands on her shoulders like he needed to confirm with his own eyes that this was real and not another exhausted, wishful dream. "I organized every protest I could get bodies to. Every hearing, every letter, every reporter who'd give me five minutes. My old partners on the force, half of them showed up too. Then…then this offer…." His voice wavered again, and he shook his head like he still couldn't quite believe it had worked. "I said yes before he finished the sentence."
"Offer? I-I still don't get it…"
"Let me explain."
Which was when Felix appeared from the living room. He was a well-dressed man in matching light-brown clothes. Gwen looked over at him and her eyes widened. "Y-you…! You're…Felix...!"
"Long time no see, Gwen Stacy."
Since Ororo's island. Since fighting her.
What did she think of seeing him? Felix couldn't fathom. There was raw slack-jaw shock on her, while her father George smiled dearily, as though seeing an old friend.
"He's the one that really helped us with this. Got us the best lawyers and everything. And, uh, some other stuff too," George admitted. He was a former captain, he was very aware of the dark strings Felix pulled to pull off a feat like this. "Thank you, Felix."
Gwen's lips moved but didn't give out sound. Felix took that as his opportunity to gesture at the red couches. "Please, sit, and let me explain."
As her father smiled and helped his daughter to sit, Gwen never stopped eyeing Felix. The coat was semi-fancy and he was obviously of moderate importance. But…how important could this nobody scientist really be?
"Sorry about the cuffs," Felix said as soon as everyone was seated and the double-door was locked and closed. "Considering the timeline of everything, it was the minimum requirement for you to see your father."
To that, George kissed her on the cheek. He had his arm wrapped around her, smiling and hoping she'd never go away. Gwen kept just looking at him strangely.
So Felix explained.
"Superpowers have existed for quite some time. The government prefers to keep them hidden, permanently, but not all the time. Do you remember the Wasp?"
"Janet Van Dyne? Y-yeah, she gave me my first web-shooters," Gwen murmured.
Janet Van Dyne was a supermodel, superhero, and later billionaire mogul fashion designer after retiring from superheroics. She operated during the eighties primarily and was more of a spy than an outright superhero. Newspapers printed out evidence of her existence, yet it never became public knowledge.
That was until the trial of Gwen Stacy. When she put into prison, the connection of her technology was made and the sixty-something year old lady admitted to being the Wasp. It might have been bigger news, if not for the fact that she was overshadowed by Gwen's arrest.
"In the early 2000s, Janet with the help of SHIELD developed a program for superpowered people that were no threat to anyone. So this building," Felix gestured outward, "houses several people like you. Well, not remotely as strong as you, but they have special powers and special needs. It's a nice, small community. You'll be mostly confined to this building, but with permission and time, you'll be able to go out and live a normal life."
"A lot's happened," George said quickly. "So much public outcry and gossip and reporters. Honestly, it would have been best to stay low anyhow."
"...I see," was all Gwen could say. To her, this probably seemed nothing short of a dream.
Felix had sent Dr. Pyro—AKA Czarina to break Gwen out safely. They'd work together for it, of course. An elaborate heist to steal away a woman that did not deserve to be caged up. But things got complicated and the security around Gwen got tighter and tighter. They needed another method.
And like clockwork, as though one closed door opened another, the investigation on SHIELD dug up Program Nest: a super-secretive witness protection program for non-lethal superhumans.
It was a miracle Felix found it. Like any good witness protection program, secrecy was key and it was only vaguely implied in SHIELD's profile of Janet as "PROGRAM NEST". Otherwise, there was no mention of it.
So, Felix decided to go straight to the source. He asked Janet about this Program Nest. It was a small miracle he got into contact with her in the first place considering they worked in completely different sectors of business. However, Jennifer Walters made it possible. She often represented Janet in court.
Bada-bing, bada-boom.
The door on Program Nest was kicked open and, like a spider, Felix set his web to garner everyone into agreeing to it.
"Due to current circumstances, all SHIELD authority was handed over to the FBI. Who then, after analysis from psychologists and much consideration—" And blackmail. "Decided to put you here too."
Gwen looked him up and down, and then side-eyed the door. "There's still mechanisms in place…" And to his surprise, she breathed in relief. She smiled at the cuffs containing her, and then smiled at Felix. "Thank you."
"No, this is the least we can do. Honestly, I wish I could do more. You're a victim." Felix smiled. "You deserve to be home."
Gwen's eyes watered and she repeated, "Thank you. Thank you." After that, it was like a broken dam. Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. She hiccuped and cried, and her father hugged her to his chest.
Felix looked over at Dr. Pyro, at Czarina, who had been the only one standing. She was smiling too. She was happy to see this.
Gwen Stacy was not in another dimension. She was not being controlled by a friend. She was still in custody, still being watched and contained, but…that wasn't the point.
Gwen Stacy was finally home.
Gwen Stacy was back with her father again.