164. The Weight We Choose to Carry. (Patreon)

Gwendolyn POV:

The room was dark except for the faint, sickly glow of the emergency lights running along the upper wall. The hum of the Helicarrier’s engines vibrated through the floor. Steady, mechanical, indifferent.

But my hands…

My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

I sat on the edge of my bunk, elbows on my knees, palms pressed together so tightly the knuckles had turned white beneath my gloves. Every blink burned. The tears kept gathering no matter how many times I wiped them away.

It felt the same.

The same as that day.

The same choking, collapsing feeling in my chest.

The day I buried Peter alive under concrete. The day I changed his life forever.

I could still smell the dust.

Hear the crack of the collapsing ceiling.

Feel the sickening moment my heart shattered when I thought I’d killed him.

And tonight… I had killed someone. Intentionally.

Not a monster.

Not a creature of shadows.

Not even the Spot.

Miguel O’Hara. Spider-Man 2099.

A man who thought he was doing the right thing.

A man so consumed by fear and grief that he’d twisted the world around those wounds.

A man who, in his final moments… was desperate.

And I killed him.

My fingers shook again. The sensation of the plasma lances discharging still tingled through my arms. The heat, the flash, the moment his body ruptured into mist and ash even though I couldn't physically feel them.

My stomach twisted. I pressed the back of my wrist against my mouth, swallowing back a sound that might’ve been a sob.

Then, a soft knock on the door.

Three taps. Steady. Familiar.

I scrubbed the tears off my cheeks with my sleeve, sniffed once and forced my voice to work.

“Y... Yeah. Come in.”

The door slid open with a smooth hydraulic hiss.

Peter stepped inside.

He wasn’t in armor or uniform. Just a black t-shirt, cargo pants, boots unlaced. But beneath his shirt the faint amber glow of his Sandevistan pulsed like slow, steady fire. His hair was messy, his eyes tired… but warm.

He closed the door behind him and sat beside me without a word.

For a long moment, he didn’t touch me. Didn’t try to pull me into his arms. He just… sat there, close enough that our shoulders brushed. Close enough that I could feel the steady heat off of him.

Then he asked quietly. “Gwen… how are you holding up? I know it was your first kill.”

My throat tightened instantly. I let out a shaky breath.

“It feels…”

I had to swallow before continuing.

“…it feels horrible, Peter.”

He nodded. Not dismissing it, not judging it. Just… listening.

A tear slipped down again. I didn’t bother hiding it this time.

“I keep seeing it,” I whispered. “The blue blades going through him. The look on his face. The way he... he just... ”

My voice cracked. "Flash boiled.”

Peter remained perfectly still, letting the silence soften around us. Finally, I asked the question gnawing at my insides.

“How do you deal with it? You’ve… you’ve killed before.”

His expression shifted. Not hardening, not cold, but dimming, as if a shadow passed behind his eyes.

“Statistics.” He replied. “They help.”

I turned to him, brows knitting.

“Statistics?”

He nodded.

“Numbers don’t lie. Numbers don’t scream. Numbers don’t look at you before the end.”

He exhaled slowly.

“When I make a choice… when I take a life… I remind myself what the alternative cost would be. How many lives would be lost if I hesitated, or if I failed.”

I felt the weight in his voice... the old wounds, the buried memories.

It hurt him more than he let anyone see.

“You did what you had to do, Gwen.”

His voice was steady now, firm.

“When Miguel jumped for that siphon field, if he’d disrupted the extraction even for half a second, the dimensional feedback would’ve detonated. Not just Manhattan. Not just Earth-1610.”

He looked at me, eyes unflinching.

“It would’ve torn open a void big enough to devour the multiverse.”

My chest tightened again.

“And you stopped it.” He said softly. “You saved… everything. Every hero, every villain, every man, woman and child.”

“But I still killed someone.” I sobbed out.

“You saved countless others.” He replied. “Multitudes you’ll never meet. Universes that will never know how close they came to dying.”

I stared at the floor. The shaking had started again.

Peter finally reached out and placed his hand on mine. Warm, calloused, grounding.

“We’ll deal with Jonathan Ohnn next.” He said quietly. “He’s too dangerous to live. His biology can hold dimensional energy… and he is a variable that can't be left alone as villains, governments, secret agencies will try to weaponize him.”

I nodded weakly. I didn’t trust my voice.

Peter stood slowly, squeezing my hand once before letting go.

Someone had to make these horrible, impossible choices.

He walked to the door, pausing as it slid open.

“Gwen?”

I lifted my head.

He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t cold. He was simply honest, the way only he ever could be.

“I’m glad it’s us.” He said. “Making the choices no one else can stomach.”

His voice was steady but soft.

“Because very few people in the multiverse have the strength to endure the pain that follows.”

He held my gaze a moment longer.

Then he left, the door whispering shut behind him.

Alone again in the quiet room, my tears fell freely.

But this time…

the shaking stopped.

Because Peter wasn’t wrong.

Some burdens…

some horrors…

some scars…

were only survivable if carried together.