Atop the Williamsburg Bank Building, two figures sat perched on the stone face of a gargoyle, their hair hanging down as they looked at the inverted city below.
"It's so quiet up here," Gwen said, her voice soft. To her, the upside-down metropolis was a breathtaking silhouette against the night sky, a city of light floating beneath a sea of misty clouds. The view reminded her of the moment she had first arrived in this universe, falling from ten thousand meters with Ben, a terrifying and beautiful plunge from one world to the next.
"This is one of the tallest spots in New York, outside of a few towers in Manhattan," Ben replied. From this vantage point, the entire city was laid out before them, and the constant, roaring hustle seemed a world away, reduced to a silent, intricate dance of light. The cars below were no more than tiny, crawling insects of red and white.
Looking out at the sprawling vista, Gwen felt an unexpected wave of melancholy. Tomorrow night, Kingpin would start his machine. The time loop would complete, the collision would be averted, and she would be sent back to her own world. The experiences of the past few days, this brief, bright spot in her life, would fade away like a dream.
The thought created an emptiness in her chest that spread like the darkness blanketing the city. She curled into herself, hugging her knees to her chest and resting her cheek there, her voice barely a whisper. "We say goodbye tomorrow."
"Why so sad?" Ben asked gently, sensing her mood. "Can't bear to leave?" He knew she was seeing this as a final farewell. Separated by the infinite multiverse, the distance between them would be greater than life and death.
For him, however, the problem was not insurmountable. He had already analyzed the principles of the particle collider. Building a machine to traverse the multiverse was no longer an impossible task. Not to mention, he knew that out there, a whole society of Spider-People already existed. This wasn't goodbye forever.
Gwen didn't know that. All she knew was that after tomorrow, she would be alone again. She would have no one to talk to, no one to fight alongside. She would go back to being a ghost in her own city.
Ben's arrival had been like a single, brilliant ray of light piercing through the dark, lonely world she had inhabited. These past few days, she had felt truly relaxed, as if the crushing weight she always carried had been lifted. The nightmares that had plagued her for years—of Peter, his body twisted into the monstrous form of the Lizard, dying in her arms as her hands were stained with his blood—had vanished. Here, with Ben, it was as if he possessed some special magic that calmed the storm inside her.
He saw the sadness returning to her eyes. He reached out and gently ran his hand through her short, blonde hair.
The unexpected touch made Gwen jump, a tiny gasp escaping her lips as a jolt like static electricity shot through her. It was followed instantly by a wave of warmth that spread across her cheeks. She had never been touched so intimately, so tenderly, by a boy before. It wasn't annoying or unwelcome; it was profoundly comforting, and it quieted the anxious, sad turmoil in her heart. She exhaled slowly and buried her flushing face deeper between her knees, not avoiding his touch, but silently savoring the warmth of his palm, her heart fluttering.
She was just a high school student. Before becoming Spider-Woman, she had been a good girl, watched over carefully by her father, George Stacy. Boys and relationships were a foreign concept. Then her life had become a chaotic mess of fighting crime, grieving Peter, and being estranged from her father. The endless pain and pressure had numbed her. But here, with him, she didn't have to think about any of it.
I wish this moment could be stretched out forever, like spider-silk, she thought with a soft, internal sigh. They sat there quietly, two motionless figures who could have been mistaken for the building's own stone gargoyles, watching the city breathe below them.
But time does not stand still. When the sun rose and set once more, the perch on the Williamsburg Bank Building was empty.
Deep underground, beneath the streets of Brooklyn, Ben, Gwen, and Peter stood cloaked in their battle suits. Through the stealth monitor Ben had deployed, a holographic projection showed the interior of Kingpin's hidden laboratory.
Gwen had buried her emotions deep down, her focus now entirely on the mission. She looked at the collection of villains Kingpin had assembled, her eyes widening. "The Green Goblins in your universes look like… that?"
"Is there a problem with it?" the older Peter asked, scratching his head as he looked at Ben. To him, the armored, goblin-like figure looked perfectly normal.
Ben shrugged. "Don't look at me. There's no Green Goblin in my universe. I cured Norman Osborn. He's the Director of H.A.M.M.E.R. now."
Both Peter and Gwen stared at him.
"Is there anything you can't do?" Peter asked, his voice thick with envy. In his universe, he had once been close with the Osborn family, but fate had twisted them into mortal enemies.
Ben continued nonchalantly, "I also cured my Doctor Connors. He and my Doctor Otto Octavius are doing groundbreaking research at my company now."
Peter's jaw dropped. Gwen flinched as if he'd struck her. "You… you were able to cure the Lizard serum?" For her, the Lizard was a permanent scar on her soul. She couldn't help but think that if she had been able to develop an antidote back then, maybe her Peter wouldn't have died.
Sensing her pain, Ben addressed her first. "I'll send you the formula's data packet," he said gently. "But you need to understand, the mutation in your world wasn't just about the serum. It was amplified by the Spider-Totem. So it was never your fault."
He patted her reassuringly on the shoulder, and Gwen felt a weight she didn't even know she was still carrying begin to lift. Then Ben turned to the older Peter. "And in my universe, Doctor Otto is a man. A very good one, at that."
Peter and Gwen could only look at him with a shared, profound sense of envy.
"It's not all easy, though," Ben admitted. "I've also got a mad veterinarian who wants to devolve the world into a prehistoric wasteland, a giant purple titan who wanted to snap his fingers and destroy half the universe, and an alien squid-faced warlord who is pathologically obsessed with my watch."
After hearing that, Peter and Gwen instantly felt much better about their own rogues' gallery.
They turned their attention back to the screen. The particle collider was a monstrous machine, shaped like a city-sized version of an Arc Reactor, humming with enough energy to tear the fabric of the multiverse. Staring at it through high-strength, explosion-proof glass was the Kingpin, his eyes glistening with unshed tears.
"Vanessa… Richard…" he whispered the names of his wife and son. It was hard to believe the ruthless underground emperor of New York City was driven by such a deep, abiding love.
Beside him, this universe's Doctor Octopus—a woman with wild hair and four mechanical tentacles—frowned at her console. "Spider-Man hasn't made a move. It's strange." Several previous tests had caused seismic tremors and power outages across Brooklyn. She knew Spider-Man had been investigating, but then, he had simply gone quiet.
"Maybe he didn't find anything," the Prowler grunted from a shadowy corner.
Rhino and Scorpion started to chime in with their own hatred for the web-slinger, but were cut off by the heavy thud of Kingpin's cane striking the floor.
"I don't care about Spider-Man," Kingpin said, his voice a low, cold growl. "If he dares to show his face, I trust you all will kill him." His gaze swept over the assembled villains: Doctor Octopus, Prowler, Rhino, Scorpion, Tombstone, and the Green Goblin. If this collection of killers couldn't stop one man, they were worthless to him.
"Don't worry, Fisk," a deep voice boomed. A version of the Green Goblin, far larger than a man, a hulking monster of green muscle and bone, loomed just outside the control room, too large to fit through the door. "You're not the only one who wants to crush that spider."
Kingpin nodded, a flicker of satisfaction in his eyes. "I just want to ensure that tonight's experiment proceeds without any complications," he declared. "Otto, do not disappoint me!"
"It's ready," she confirmed. "The collider is stable."
Today, Kingpin thought with fierce resolve, I bring my wife and son back! Even if the entire borough of Brooklyn was wiped from existence in the process, it would be a small price to pay.
"What a maniac," Gwen whispered, a chill running down her spine.
"Masks on," Peter said grimly. On the screen, Kingpin had just given the order to begin the sequence. "It'll take several minutes for the machine to reach full power. Remember, we have to wait until the multiversal collision actually begins before we shut it down."
"Got it," Gwen nodded. Then she turned to Ben, planting her hands on her hips. "So? Where is it? That symbiotic suit you promised me."
Ben laughed. "I'd almost forgotten," he said, his eyes sparkling with mischief. He placed a hand over the Omnitrix. "Are you ready for a possession?"
"A pos—what?"
Before Gwen could react, a flash of green light engulfed Ben. In his place hovered a liquid, bio-mechanical mass of black and green circuitry. It launched itself directly at her.
"Wait, wait—mmph!"
Gwen finally understood what he'd meant by 'symbiote'. The living technology flowed over her, not like a slime, but like a wave of liquid metal. It was a strange, cool sensation, completely unlike the violation she had half-feared. It wasn't attacking her; it was merging with her suit, flowing into every nanite, every fiber.
In an instant, the familiar pink and white of her Ghost-Spider costume vanished, replaced by a sleek, new form. Her suit was still predominantly white, but now it was traced with glowing, green-and-black circuitry patterns. Her hood was sharper, her lenses glowed with a faint green light, and she could feel a thrum of immense, controlled power coursing through her.
Peter stared, speechless. This was… Nightmare Ghost-Spider.
Gwen, however, was having a very different experience. Her face, visible under the new hood, was burning with embarrassment. It wasn't a physical violation, but it was an intimacy so profound it was overwhelming. She could feel Ben's calm, tactical thoughts brushing against her own, his consciousness linked directly with hers. It felt as if he was inside her mind, wrapping her own chaotic thoughts in a blanket of cool confidence. There were no secrets.
"You… you… you…" she stammered, unable to form a coherent sentence. She had never dreamed his symbiote suit meant he would literally become the suit. The sensation was so bizarre she wanted to find a crack in the floor and crawl into it.
A sleek, green-lined head, coalesced on her shoulder. "Technically, this is a symbiotic relationship," its voice, Ben's voice, echoed in her mind. "You wanted the suit, or not?"
Ben was just teasing her. Seeing her flushed, flustered reaction, he felt he'd achieved his goal. Okay, I'll disconnect. This might be too much for her.
As the black-and-green circuitry began to recede, Gwen suddenly shouted, both aloud and in her mind. "Wait!"
The retreat halted. "No… you don't have to change back…" she sent, her thought-voice barely a whisper. The idea of their impending separation, of being alone again forever, suddenly filled her with a new, wild bravery. If this was to be their last moment, their last fight, she wanted to leave an impression. She wanted to share it with him. Fully.
Taking a deep breath, Gwen embraced the connection. The line between her thoughts and his blurred.
It wasn't Ben possessing Gwen, or Gwen wearing Ben. They were one.
Ben was momentarily stunned by her sudden acceptance.
Gwen, feeling his surprise, took control. Her new form crackled with green energy. She clenched her fists, feeling a power she had never imagined.
"Let's see what we can do," she said, her voice a perfect fusion of her own and Ben's, ringing with newfound power.
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