Spider-Man: Cumming Home - Chapter 12 (A Spider-Man Fanfic) (Patreon)

Chapter 12: No Panties Policy

The residual heat under my skin had been a low, steady burn all morning, like someone left the oven on and forgot to tell me. Sanctum smelled of ozone and old books and whatever Wong had burned in the kitchen trying to make tea. Strange stood at the edge of the main chamber, gold light still flickering around the cages. Two Ottos. Two Lizards. Two Electros. One extra Goblin. Sandman looking like a half-collapsed hourglass. All of them quiet for once.

Ned paced near the stairs. "Another tether pulse is bouncing around midtown. Same shape as Gwen's was, but new. Like a heartbeat that can't decide if it wants to be a person."

"Helpful as a brick," I said. "Keep tracking it."

Gwen sat on the edge of a low couch that had probably seen more magical disasters than furniture should. She wore one of MJ's old hoodies, sleeves pushed up, legs crossed, bare feet on the rug. Three days ago her biggest problem had been a college midterm she was now going to miss forever. Sharp eyes, still a little haunted around the edges from falling off a clock tower and not dying. She had been quiet since she arrived. Watching me. Watching the cages. Watching the way the residual energy made the air feel thicker whenever I got close.

MJ leaned against the far wall, arms folded, one eyebrow already doing its thing. She had clocked Gwen the second the breach spit her out. Possessive-but-playing. Dry as dust. She caught my eye and gave the tiniest shrug that said your mess, Parker.

The air tore open near the far window.

Gold sparks first. Then a sound like fabric ripping through dimensions. A lean figure stumbled through, landed hard, rolled, came up on one knee with webs already half-formed at his wrists.

A stranger with my face.

Gwen's Peter. Had to be.

He was smaller than me. Leaner. Same face, same messy hair, same look of someone who had just lost everything and then somehow found it again. His suit was torn at one shoulder. He looked around the chamber, eyes wild, and then he saw her.

"Gwen."

Her name came out like it had been punched out of him.

She stood. Slow. The hoodie fell to mid-thigh. She did not run to him.

He did. Crossed the space in three long strides and reached for her like the world might take her again if he blinked.

She let him pull her in. Let him hold her. For a second. Then her hands came up between them and she pushed, gentle but firm, until there was space.

"You're alive," he said. Voice cracking. "I thought - the web snapped and I couldn't -"

"I know," Gwen said. Quiet. No drama. Just the truth sitting between them like a third person. "I watched it fail."

He flinched. Looked past her at me. At the bigger frame, the broader shoulders, the way the residual energy made me take up more space than a regular Peter Parker ever should. His eyes narrowed.

"Who the hell is that?"

"Another one," Strange said from the side, dry. "Local variety. Currently responsible for the open door you just walked through."

The other Spider-Man ignored him. Kept staring at me. Then back at Gwen. "Come on. We can go home. Strange - the other Strange - he can fix this. We can -"

"No," Gwen said.

The word landed clean.

He blinked. "What?"

"I'm not going back." She took another half-step away. The distance felt deliberate. "I fell. You reached. It wasn't enough. I died in that air, Peter. Or I would have. This one refused to let me go back. This universe kept me. And every time I close my eyes I still feel the wind and the snap of the web and the fact that it failed."

His face did that thing faces do when the floor drops out. "Gwen -"

"I watched it happen. I felt it. And then I was here, and he was the one standing between me and the way back." She glanced at me once, quick, then back to him. "I can't unsee that. I can't pretend the version of you that tried is the same as the one that worked. It isn't fair. It isn't kind. But it's true."

Silence stretched. Ned looked like he wanted to be anywhere else. MJ's eyebrow climbed another millimeter. Wong made a small noise that might have been sympathy or indigestion.

His hands flexed. Webs flickered and died. "So that's it? You're just - done? Because some bigger version of me showed up and played hero better?"

"I'm done because I already started dying while you were still reaching," she said. Soft. Final. "I already said goodbye in the air. This is just the part where I stop pretending otherwise."

He stared at her for a long second. Then at me. The look he gave me was pure heat and grief and the kind of anger that has nowhere to go. "You took her."

"I saved her," I said. Kept it flat. No jokes. Not for this. "She was falling. I didn't ask the breach to open."

"You kept the breaches open."

"Yeah. Because sending her back meant she hit the ground. I made the call. Own it."

He took a step toward me. I did not move. The residual energy under my skin answered, a low roll of heat that made my shoulders feel wider. He was leaner. Faster maybe. But smaller. The difference sat between us like a fact neither of us could argue with.

Strange cleared his throat. "Perhaps the reunion can continue elsewhere. The cages are restless."

Gwen's Peter looked at her one more time. She met his eyes and did not look away. Whatever he saw there finished it.

"Okay," he said. Voice rough. "Okay." He turned toward the nearest wall like he might web out of the Sanctum itself, then stopped. "If you change your mind -"

"I won't."

He left the way he came - back through the ragged edge of the same breach, no clean door, no guarantee. Gold light sealed behind him. The chamber felt emptier and heavier at the same time.

Gwen exhaled. Sat back down on the couch. Ran both hands through her hair.

MJ pushed off the wall. "Well. That was cheerful."

"Don't," Gwen said, but there was no real heat in it.

I stayed where I was. The residual burn was worse now. Closer to her. Like the energy knew something I was still pretending not to.

Ned coughed. "Tether pulse just spiked again. Still human-shaped. Still loose."

"Track it," I said. "Wong, keep the cages quiet. Strange - any chance the open doors calm down if we stop catching people?"

"Unlikely," Strange said. "You chose. The multiverse is listening."

He and Wong left for the upper levels. Ned followed after one more awkward glance at the three of us. The chamber settled into that particular quiet that only happens after someone has their heart broken in public.

MJ walked over, stopped beside me, and spoke low enough that only I caught it. "She's looking at you like you grew two extra arms and she can't decide if she wants to hit them or climb them."

"Helpful."

"Just saying. Antagonistic chemistry is still chemistry." She kissed the corner of my mouth, quick, possessive, then headed for the stairs. "I'll be upstairs. We still owe each other that talk. Try not to break the furniture in the meantime. Or do. I'm flexible."

Then it was just Gwen and me and the low gold shimmer of the cages.

She looked up. "Your girlfriend is terrifying."

"She's an acquired taste."

"She's right, though." Gwen stood again. Paced once, bare feet silent on the rug. "I don't want this. Whatever this is." She gestured between us with two fingers. "I just got here. I just ended things with the version of you that actually belonged to me. I left my whole semester hanging. And you -" She stopped in front of me. Close enough that the residual heat under my skin answered harder. "You're bigger. It's annoying."

"I get that a lot lately."

"Don't be cute."

"I'm not trying."

She scoffed. Turned away. The hoodie rode up a fraction when she moved. Just a woman who had fallen out of her own death and landed in someone else's living room.

"I keep noticing it," she said, back still to me. "The way you take up space. The way the air feels warmer when you walk past. It's residual, right? The dimensional leftover. Your body is running hotter. Denser. And every woman in a three-block radius is apparently getting the memo."

"Something like that."

"It's irritating." She turned. Met my eyes. The friction was already there, sharp and stupid and obvious. "I don't like you. You're the reason I can't go home without dying. You're the reason the doors stay open. And you look at me like you're already calculating how many webs it would take to pin me somewhere quiet."

"I look at you like someone who just watched her own death get cancelled," I said. "Everything else is the residual talking."

"Liar."

She stepped closer. The heat rolled. My pulse kicked once, hard. She was still half a head shorter. Still lean where I had gone broad. Still carrying the sharp edges of someone who had been in love with a different Peter and had just finished burying it in real time.

"I should hate this," she said. Quiet. "I should walk upstairs and lock a door and wait for the next breach to spit out something simpler. Instead I'm standing here noticing how much wider your shoulders are than his. How steady you were when Strange wanted me gone. How the jokes keep coming even when the situation is pure disaster."

"Pumpkin Spice Extra Rage," I offered. "It's a lifestyle."

She almost smiled. Almost. Then the almost died and the heat stayed.

"Your MJ already knows," she said. "She looked at me like she was measuring the exact distance between my mouth and yours and deciding whether to charge rent."

"She's good at that."

"And you?" Gwen tilted her head. The hoodie slipped off one shoulder. Collarbone. Clean skin. "What are you good at, Parker?"

"Catching people who fall. Quipping under pressure. Making everything more complicated than it needs to be."

"Show me the complicated part."

I did not move. The residual energy wanted me to. Wanted me closer. The friction between us was already doing the work - bickering that kept sliding into something thicker, glances that lasted half a second too long, the way her eyes kept dropping to my hands and then away like she was cataloguing the difference in size.

She paced again. Stopped near the low table. Put one hand on it. Looked back over her shoulder.

"I don't want you," she said. Clear. "I want the version of this that makes sense. The one where I go home and none of this happened. Instead I get the version where every time you walk past me the air gets heavier and my skin starts paying attention without permission."

"Same page," I said. "I don't want this either. I've got MJ. I've got open doors and a city full of leftover villains and a tether pulse that still hasn't decided what shape it wants. Adding you to the pile is the opposite of helpful."

"Then stop looking at me like that."

"You first."

She laughed once, short and sharp. Turned fully. Closed the distance until there was almost none left. The residual heat met whatever was running under her skin and the air between us went tight.

"You're an asshole," she said.

"You're not wrong."

"And you're still bigger. Still steadier. Still the one who actually kept me." Her voice dropped. "It's not fair. None of this is fair. I already said goodbye to him. I already felt the web fail. And now I'm here noticing the way your hands look like they could span more than his ever did and it's making me angry and it's making me -"

She cut herself off. Breathed in. Breathed out.

"I need air," she said. "Or a wall. Or something that isn't you standing there looking like you could pick me up without trying."

"Sanctum has walls," I said. "Plenty of them."

She stared at me for a long second. The friction crackled. Then she turned and walked toward the side corridor that led to the temporary rooms Strange had pointed her at the night she arrived. I followed because the residual energy made standing still feel like a bad idea, and because the unresolved tether pulse was still out there somewhere and the last thing I needed was another open door while I was distracted.

The hallway was quieter. Dimmer. One of the side rooms had a door half open. Gwen pushed it the rest of the way and stepped inside. Temporary space - bed, chair, a window that looked out over the city instead of infinity. Just a place to land when your universe decides you are not done living yet.

She stopped in the middle of the room. Did not turn on the light. City glow through the window was enough.

"This is a terrible idea," she said.

"Agreed."

"I still don't like you."

"Feeling's mutual."

"And yet." She faced me. The hoodie was long enough to cover the tops of her thighs. Bare legs underneath. The residual heat under my skin was a constant low burn now, focused, like it had decided the distance between us was a problem that needed solving.

She took one more step. Close enough that I could smell whatever soap she had used from MJ's bathroom. Close enough that the difference in size was impossible to ignore - broader chest, denser muscle, the way my shadow covered more of the floor than his ever would have.

"You're going to make this complicated," she said.

"Already is."

"Good."

She turned away from me again. Walked three steps to the foot of the bed. Stopped. Looked back over her shoulder once, eyes sharp, mouth tilted in something that was not quite a smile and not quite a challenge.

Then she bent forward.

Deliberate. Slow. Hands bracing on the edge of the mattress. The hoodie rode up the backs of her thighs, higher, higher, until the hem cleared the curve of her ass completely.

No panties.

Just bare skin, smooth and pale in the city light, the line of her completely open and offered and filthy in the most casual way possible. Like she had decided the argument was over and this was the new language.

She stayed like that. Bent. Waiting. The air in the room went tight enough to snap.

I stared.

The residual energy roared under my skin. The unresolved tether pulse somewhere out in the city kicked once, hard, like it had felt the same spike I had. MJ was upstairs. The cages were restless. Gwen's Peter was gone. And Gwen Stacy, alive because I had refused to let her die, was bent over in front of me with nothing underneath the hoodie, showing me exactly what she was choosing.