peter/gwen.} signal fire

[fireescape]

[ he breaks his promise to her father but he breaks it carefully. as far as the rest of the world is concerned, they're over. drifted out of each other's lives and he won't even let himself slip back into his old habits, taking her picture on a second's impulse, distantly trailing her. if he makes enemies again, he can't let them know that this girl, this girl is everything.

he formed this resolution when he packed up dr. connor's sewer lab, found the destroyed remains of the cameras he'd planted and realized how it was that he'd given himself away.

property of peter parker.

so he stays out of her way where the world can see except for the casual accidental intrusions that lets them make their plans. notes torn to impossibly small pieces. a scientific calculator dropped as he's walking past her, 4 digits for military time, a geeky joke, i love you in LED.

he's swinging his way to tonight's meeting, to the rooftop of her building. (he can't go back into her room just yet; he's brought enough pain to her home.) the city skyscape is nothing but anonymous shadows but he knows where to go.

day or night, he knows the shine of her hair. ]

Comments

omg i don't even know what happened i am so sorry for this

[ex_chocolatehouse384]

[ in little over a month, gwendolyn stacy had lost three men in her life.

the first was her mentor and idol, dr. curt connors. she had worshiped the man, in the way most girls her age would have worshiped a popular musician or actor. he had been her modern superhero, before she knew what a true superhero looked like, and he had been, in a way, a second father when her real father had been busy protecting lives that weren't his own. shattered now, dr. connors is a shell of the man he'd once been. she had only seen him once after it all, before he had been taken away for good, and the emptiness and sorrow that she saw in his eyes had been enough to make her turn away for good. she didn't need to hear his apologies and remorse after that; she saw more than enough of it in that instant to stay with her for the rest of her life.

the second man was her father. her true father, captain george stacy, a man who had been just as much a father to the city of new york as he had been to her and her brothers. he'd been a good man, a great man, even up until the very end, or so peter had said, only she never really wanted to hear about the end, not yet, so most of the times she had just tuned him out. he was her father, is her father, because your loved ones never truly leave you, or some other bullshit the priest had said during the funeral, and even though it was silly, and romantic, and science and fact and truth tell her that he is gone, no longer of this earth (but part of the earth now) - she wants to believe. wants to think that every sip of every hot cocoa that she has every evening is just a little bit more of her father that she gets to keep.

and the third was peter. peter parker, her not-quite-first-love. her first love had been a boy in freshman year who was too good looking for his own good and the rest of the story is actually so embarrassingly cliche that it makes her cringe just to even think about it. for years, she thought he'd broken her heart, until peter showed her what a real broken heart felt like. she had fallen for him, hard, because she is a smart girl, and if there is ever one cardinal rule about smart girls, it's that smart girls are always incredibly, painfully idiotic when it came to boys. he is a hero, but he isn't flawless, and though she's spent years drowning in her love for science, and science's love for perfection, it's his imperfections that draw her. she doesn't think she can save him, like most teenage girls hope to one day find a man and change him for the better, because he's already doing that himself, without anyone's help, and she knows it's love because all she wants is for the chance to be there to see him do it.

for each of those moments, she had grieved. gone through the seven stages and everything, right as rain, healthy enough not to have to see the family psychiatrist. she'd grieved and mourned and time, like they say, is healing all wounds. love, too, is certainly giving it a shot.

science says there will be a backlash. she had already said her good-byes and made her peace with peter, so it stands to reason that his reappearance in her life will provoke consequences. all she's felt so far, though, is a glimmer of a time in her life when things had been happy. simpler.

the sneaking around is tiring. the elicit meetings make her feel dirty, like they're not only hiding from spider-man's enemies, but from her father, who is too dead to stop them, but too alive in her heart to leave her completely guiltless. she apologizes to him every day, but she is a big girl, daddy, and she can handle this. she will handle this. his sacrifice will not be in vain, because she will live on, but more importantly, she will be happy.

tonight will be simple. her mother is away and her brothers are all at the ages where they've long since stopped caring that they have a sister, and the skies are as empty as the rooptop she now stands in, waiting. there are several college application essays stewing on her computer, but she's pretty sure if she proofreads any more about what makes her so goddamn amazing and perfect for so-and-so college she just might burst. no, tonight will be simple. stress-free. just him and her.

glancing up at the dark sky, she takes a small sip of her hot cocoa, and she waits. ]