Gwen Stacy had always been fast.
Not just quick-witted or quick on her feet—she had always moved like the world was half a second behind her. She chalked it up to growing up in Queens: dodging traffic, outrunning trouble, staying one step ahead of grief after her dad died. But lately, the feeling had sharpened into something else.
Something impossible.
It started small.
A reflex too fast to explain: catching a falling beaker in the MIT lab before it hit the floor, fingers closing around glass like they'd known it was coming. A jog across campus that left her barely winded after four miles—heart rate steady, legs fresh. The way she sometimes felt the air shift before someone spoke, like her skin could hear things her ears hadn't caught yet.
She told herself it was stress. Adrenaline. Love making everything feel brighter, sharper.
Until the night it couldn't be ignored.
Late September. She and Alex were walking back from a late dinner in Cambridge—streetlights buzzing, air crisp with early fall. They were laughing about something stupid (Tommy's latest design disaster) when a delivery bike rounded the corner too fast, tires skidding, rider losing control.
The bike was going to clip a pedestrian—a girl on her phone, earbuds in, oblivious.
Gwen didn't think.
She moved.
One heartbeat she was beside Alex; the next she was across the street—ten meters in a blink—arm out, catching the handlebar with one hand, bike and rider both coming to a sudden, impossible stop. The girl on the sidewalk never even looked up.
Gwen stood frozen, chest heaving, the metal frame hot under her palm.
The rider stared at her—wide-eyed, terrified, grateful.
"You… you okay?" Gwen managed.
He nodded mutely, took the bike, pedaled away fast.
Gwen turned slowly.
Alex was already there—standing where she'd left him, eyes wide, not shocked. Knowing.
She walked back to him on legs that suddenly felt foreign.
"Alex," she whispered. "What the hell was that?"
He looked around—quick scan for cameras, witnesses—then took her hand and pulled her into the nearest alley.
Inside the shadows, he cupped her face gently.
"You're okay," he said, voice low, steady. "Breathe."
She did. Once. Twice.
Then the words tumbled out.
"I moved too fast. I felt it coming before I saw it. My skin—it tingled, like… like I knew exactly where everything was going to be."
Alex nodded slowly.
"I know," he said quietly. "I've been waiting for this."
Gwen stared at him. "Waiting?"
He exhaled. "I think you've been exposed. Not a lot. Not enough to turn you into something else. But enough."
"Exposed to what?"
He hesitated—only a second—then told her.
"Years ago, during one of the early Stark incidents—before Iron Man was public—there was a lab accident near Queens. Oscorp. Experimental spider DNA research. A few people got dosed. Most didn't survive. Some… changed."
Gwen's stomach dropped.
"My dad," she whispered. "He worked security at Oscorp back then. He never talked about it. Just said there were 'bad nights' he couldn't forget."
Alex nodded. "He might have been exposed too. Or maybe it was trace contamination—something you inherited, something latent. The powers usually stay dormant until stress, adrenaline, or proximity to another enhanced person wakes them."
Gwen's mind raced.
"You," she said. "Being around you. The fights. The tension. It woke something up."
Alex looked pained. "I should have told you sooner. I suspected after the first few times you moved like that. I was going to—after I was sure."
She stepped back—half a step—hands shaking.
"You knew. And you didn't say anything."
"I was scared," he admitted rawly. "Scared you'd hate me. Scared you'd think I brought this on you. Scared you'd leave."
Gwen stared at him—anger flickering, then fading into something softer, sadder.
"I'm not leaving," she said quietly. "But I'm terrified. I don't want to be a hero. I don't want to wear a suit or fight aliens or… or lose myself."
Alex closed the distance again—slow, careful, asking permission with his eyes.
She let him.
He wrapped his arms around her, holding her like she might break.
"You don't have to be anything you don't want to be," he whispered into her hair. "You're still Gwen. Still the girl who makes terrible puns and steals my hoodies and loves me even when I'm a paranoid mess. The powers don't change that unless you let them."
She buried her face in his chest, breathing him in—familiar soap, faint coffee, the steady beat of his heart.
"What if I can't control it?" she asked, voice muffled.
"Then we figure it out together," he said fiercely. "Training. Safety protocols. Whatever it takes. You're not doing this alone. Not ever."
Gwen pulled back just enough to look up at him.
Tears shimmered in her eyes, but she smiled—small, brave, real.
"Promise?"
He cupped her cheek, thumb brushing away a tear.
"Promise."
She leaned up and kissed him—soft at first, then deeper, desperate, like she was anchoring herself to him in the storm that had just arrived.
When they parted, foreheads pressed together, she whispered:
"I love you. Powers and all."
Alex's voice cracked. "I love you more. Always."
They stood in the alley for a long time—holding each other while the city moved on around them.
Later, back in the apartment, Gwen stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
She flexed her fingers. A faint white-and-pink shimmer danced along her skin—web-like, delicate, gone in a blink.
She didn't scream. Didn't panic.
She just exhaled.
And smiled.
Because whatever came next—webs, speed, danger, masks—she wasn't facing it alone.
Alex was waiting in the bedroom—light off, only the city glow through the window.
She walked to him, climbed into bed, curled against his side.
He wrapped an arm around her without a word.
Gwen rested her head on his chest.
Listened to his heartbeat.
And for the first time since the bike incident, she felt something new.
Not fear.
Not chaos.
Peace.
Because love wasn't about being unbreakable.
It was about choosing to break together—and then choosing to heal.
Side by side.
(Word count: 1009)