[A/N]: Since a lot of you were asking who Raj was in the previous chapter, here's the answer. He's the main character from my very first fanfic, 'CYOA in DC' If that name caught your attention, definitely check it out and let me know what you think.
And for those of you who caught the Easter egg right away, I'm curious. How did that "aha" moment feel when Raj was mentioned?
Always love hearing your thoughts. 💥
The first goal of the week is 200 Power Stones for 2 bonus chapters. If you're enjoying the story, drop a stone, leave a comment, and share it around to show some love.
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New York City, Midtown High School
Peter Parker's world compressed into pain and movement: web-sling, dodge, punch, repeat until his muscles turned to liquid fire.
Blood ran from his nose, coating his lips in copper bitterness. His mask hung in shredded tatters, exposing half his face. Bone jutted white through torn skin where his left arm hung useless, screaming with every heartbeat. Each breath felt like knives between ribs.
But the kids were still screaming inside the collapsed cafeteria.
Twenty-three students trapped beneath concrete and twisted rebar. Peter knew them, had shared lunches with them, and made stupid jokes about teachers between classes.
So he kept fighting.
The Sentinel's fist came like a meteorite. Peter's spider-sense screamed warnings, but his body was too slow and too exhausted. He managed to turn his head just enough that the blow glanced off his temple instead of caving in his skull.
Stars exploded across his vision as Peter hit the ground hard enough to crack the asphalt, his body bouncing before skidding to a stop against rubble.
"Get up," he muttered through split lips. 'Come on, Parker. Jay said family comes first, but these kids are somebody's family too. Can't keep depending on him to rescue.'
His body refused to cooperate.
Three Sentinels advanced in perfect formation, red targeting lasers painting death across his chest.
"MUTATE SPIDER-MAN. CEASE RESISTANCE."
Peter's frustrated laugh came out broken, half-sob. He tried to raise his web-shooter, but his hand trembled so badly the webbing went wide.
"No. No no no." He pushed himself up on one elbow. 'Just a little more. Can't be that kid who needs saving.'
The Sentinels charged as the ground shook beneath their footfalls.
His danger sense pinged desperately, but what was the point? He couldn't move fast enough.
'I'm sorry, Uncle Ben. I'm sorry, Aunt May. I tried to find balance, but I can't walk away when people need help.'
The first Sentinel's fist descended.
Meanwhile, Gwen Stacy ran through the chaos, heart hammering.
She'd watched Peter throw himself into danger again and again since that hospital conversation after Uncle Ben's shooting, watched him try to find impossible balance between being Peter Parker and being Spider-Man while tearing himself apart.
And now he was about to die.
She could see it from where she stood pressed against the bodega wall: three Sentinels converging on Peter's broken body while blood pooled beneath him.
"No!" The word tore from her throat. "Peter!"
Her feet moved without permission, carrying her toward a battle she had no business entering. She was just a normal girl. What could she do against machines built to kill superheroes?
But she ran anyway.
"Peter! You have to run!" Her voice cracked. "If you stay here with your body this broken, you'll die! Remember what you said to Jay? Well, right now, I need you to save yourself!"
Peter turned his head. "Gwen? No, you need to get out of here. I can't lose you too."
"I don't care!" She grabbed his good arm, tried to pull him up. "You're dying! Your arm has bone showing, and you're still trying to play hero!"
"The kids," Peter whispered. "Can't leave them. They're somebody's family."
"Someone else will save them!" Tears burned down her face. 'But no one else can be you!'
Peter's expression crumbled. "I can't just run away. With great power comes..."
"Comes death apparently!" She was shouting now. 'Jay warned you! He told you family comes first!'
The Sentinels were ten feet away. Eight feet. Six feet.
Peter looked at them, then back at Gwen, and something in his eyes broke.
Gwen couldn't let that happen.
She threw herself in front of him, arms spread wide. 'I finally understand why Peter does this. When someone you love is in danger, nothing else matters.' "You want him? You go through me first!"
"Gwen, no!" Peter tried to move but collapsed with a cry. "Please, not you. I can't lose you."
The lead Sentinel raised its fist. Red targeting lasers painted across Gwen's chest.
"TARGET ACQUIRED. REMOVING OBSTACLE."
'In that moment, staring at her own death, Gwen's mind compressed into a single desperate prayer.' 'Why do I have to be helpless? I'd give anything. Just let me save him. Please.'
Golden light materialized before her eyes.
A single mote, drifting down from the smoke-thick sky.
Then a voice spoke, not in her ears but in her soul. It was stable as bedrock, ancient as mountains.
"My child, your heart burns with courage that moved me. Will you accept what I offer? The strength to protect the one your heart belongs to?"
Gwen stared at the golden light, her mind unable to process what was happening.
But her heart knew what to say.
"Yes!" The word exploded from her. "I accept anything! Just let me save Peter!"
The golden mote surged forward, passing through her skin, merging with her chest where her heart beat wildly. Warmth flooded through her body, power rushed through her veins, restructuring everything. For the first time in her life, Gwen understood what Peter felt, what it meant to have strength beyond human limits.
Her clothes dissolved into golden light, reformed around her body in patterns she recognized from helping Peter design his suit. A spider suit, sleek and form-fitting with a hoodie. Gold dominated the color scheme like sunlight, while white webbing patterns across the chest and arms mirrored the designs she'd sketched.
She could feel it coursing through her: enhanced strength, speed, everything Peter had tried to describe. Her senses expanded outward as she finally understood Peter's spider-sense and how he moved through battles, reading danger before it arrived.
"Not today," Gwen whispered. 'People don't always need saving. Sometimes they just need the power to save themselves.'
She moved without thinking. Golden webs shot from her wrists, using every principle she'd learned helping Peter perfect his web fluid. They attached to the Sentinel's arm mid-swing.
Gwen pulled.
The Sentinel flew backwards, two tons of alloy plating sent tumbling through the air. It crashed into a wall with a sound like a car accident. Metal shrieked as the impact caved in the brick structure.
"What?" Peter's voice carried shock. "How did you... Gwen?"
Gwen didn't answer because the other two Sentinels were charging. She jumped, flipping over the first one's grabbing hands with instinctive grace.
She kicked out mid-flip. The force tore the second Sentinel's head clean off in a spray of sparks.
"Holy crap," Gwen breathed. "Did I just do that?"
The third Sentinel changed its strategy and came at her from a different angle, its weapon arm charging with red energy.
Peter's voice cut through the chaos. "Gwen! Watch out!"
Her spider-sense pinged warnings, and Gwen twisted aside, but not fast enough. The energy blast caught her shoulder dead center.
The golden suit hardened. The energy dispersed harmlessly across the surface like water hitting diamond.
"Oh," she said softly. Then louder: "Oh!"
She charged head-on. Golden webs shot out in rapid succession, covering the robot's sensors, weapon arm and joints, binding its movements.
Gwen closed the distance. Her fist connected with the Sentinel's chest plate. Metal crumpled around her knuckles, and the Sentinel collapsed in a heap of broken machinery.
Silence fell.
Gwen stood with her fist raised, golden suit gleaming and chest heaving.
Then Peter spoke. "Gwen?"
She turned to face him and pulled off her hood. "Yeah. It's me, Pete."
"But how? What happened?"
"I don't know exactly." Her hands hovered over his injuries. "I saw you getting hurt. After everything, I wanted to save you so badly. Then this motherly voice spoke. Said it could give me power to protect you if I accepted." Her hands glowed golden as golden webs sprayed from her wrists in delicate patterns, wrapping around Peter's broken arm like bandages woven from light.
"Gwen, what are you..."
The golden webbing pulsed, then dissolved into motes that floated away. Where they'd been, flesh knitted together, bone relocated with soft pops and cuts, finally sealed.
In seconds, Peter's injuries were gone. He flexed his arm experimentally. "Holy crab! You've got healing powers too?"
"Pete." Gwen cut him off. "One thing at a time."
"I... yeah." Peter stared at her. "You look amazing. Like a real hero."
"Harry helped design your suit, and I helped with the web formula, so technically I helped design this too." Gwen smiled.
Then the golden light began pulling away.
She felt it like sand slipping through her fingers. The golden suit dissolved into motes drifting upward as her enhanced senses faded back to normal, and strength left her muscles.
In seconds, Spider-Gwen was just Gwen again, kneeling beside Peter in her normal clothes.
"The power," she whispered, shaking. "It's just... gone."
Peter pulled her into a hug. "Hey, it's okay. You saved me, and you were amazing."
"But the kids..." Gwen looked at the collapsed school. "How're we gonna save them now?"
"I don't know," Peter admitted, following golden lights drifting down from the sky. "But I think something bigger's happening. Gwen, look."
Gwen saw them by the hundreds: golden motes falling across the city like rain, each one seeking someone, choosing someone and granting power to ordinary people who wanted to protect others.
A firefighter three blocks away suddenly grew wings, grabbed a family from a burning building, before the wings dissolved.
A bodega owner lifted an overturned car off trapped civilians, impossible strength fading moments after.
An old woman in a wheelchair stood and sprinted, pulled a child from a Sentinel's grasp before collapsing back.
"What is this?" Gwen breathed.
Peter's mind raced through possibilities. "I asked him why bad things always happened to normal people, why people always needed heroes to save them."
He squeezed Gwen's hand, as tears formed in his eyes.
"I think this is the answer. People don't always need Spider-Man. They don't need heroes. Sometimes they just need the power to save themselves, to protect the people they love, like you did."
Gwen watched another golden light descend. "But it's temporary. Just long enough to save someone."
"Yeah." Peter's voice was thick with emotion. "Just long enough and that's perfect. Being a hero doesn't mean carrying everything alone, nor does it mean destroying yourself. Ordinary people can be heroes when they need to be."
"Come on," Gwen said, standing and offering her hand. "We've got kids to rescue. I think we're gonna have help this time."
Golden light descended toward the collapsed school, seeking those with the courage to act. Gwen saw teachers and students and parents accepting the gift, becoming something more, just long enough to pull children from rubble.
And for the first time since the Sentinels attacked, Gwen felt hope that people could save each other when given the chance, that Peter didn't have to carry this burden alone.
That heroism wasn't about being the strongest. It was about having the courage to act when someone needed you, even if just for a moment.
And watching Peter's expression shift to something like peace, Gwen knew he understood too.
People didn't always need heroes with costumes and secret identities.
Sometimes they just needed to be brave.
Peter pulled Gwen close and kissed her, tasting blood and hope. "Thank you," he whispered. "For saving me. For showing me I don't have to do this alone."
Gwen kissed him back while golden rain fell around them like a blessing.
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