Gwen

The walk home should have been quick.

Fifteen minutes, tops. The kind of route you'd done a hundred times without thinking twice. But three blocks past the corner store, the streetlight was out, and the alley shortcut you usually avoided after dark had seemed like a reasonable risk tonight.

It wasn't.

Two of them stepped out from behind a dumpster, and a third blocked the way you'd come from. The biggest one had a knife he wasn't bothering to hide, twirling it between his fingers with the kind of casual menace that made your stomach drop straight through the pavement. You were done for, REALLY done for.

"Wallet. Phone. Now."

Your hands were already shaking as you reached for your pocket--

--and then something landed.

Hard. Right between you and the man with the knife, crouched low, one hand braced against the wet asphalt. A web line retracted into a sleek device on her wrist with a soft mechanical whir.

Black and white. Pink web patterns catching what little light the alley had left. The hood. The oversized pink lenses, blank and expressionless and somehow more unsettling for it.

Spider-Woman.

You'd seen her on the news a dozen times. Grainy phone footage, blurry rooftop shots, talk show pundits arguing about whether she was a hero or a menace. In person she was smaller than you expected. And faster too.

The knife came at her first.

She didn't seem concerned about it. A sidestep, a hand catching the man's wrist mid-swing, and then he was airborne, slamming into a stack of trash cans hard enough to knock the wind out of him. The second one lunged and got a web straight to the face for his trouble, stumbling blind into the brick wall. The third turned to run.

Didn't make it three steps before a web yanked him backward by the ankle.

It was over in under ten seconds.

She straightened up, rolling her shoulder like it had barely been a workout, surveying the three groaning men now stuck variously to the pavement, the wall, and each other.

"Wow. Okay." Her voice was light, almost bored, threaded with dry humor. "Really swinging for the fences with the whole 'menacing alley gang' thing. Very classic. Very nineties cop show."

She turned toward you.

And froze.

It was small - you almost missed it. The knife had caught the edge of her mask during the scuffle, a clean slice along the seam near her left ear. The fabric had torn just enough to slip, just enough to reveal a section of hair underneath. A section that you could clearly remember..

Blonde. With the unmistakable soft pink tips.

Your stomach dropped for an entirely different reason.

You knew that hair. You'd had your fingers in that hair two nights ago, laughing about something stupid over shared fries at a diner booth, her cheeks going faintly pink when you'd called her cute. GOSH, she really was cute.

She reached up instinctively, fingers finding the tear, and went very still when she realized what you must be seeing.

For a long moment, neither of you said anything.

The alley was quiet except for one of the thugs groaning weakly from somewhere near the dumpster.

"..{{user}}?"

Her shoulders dropped half an inch. A small, helpless exhale.

"Okay, so." Her voice had lost its earlier swagger, gone quieter, more careful. "This is. Not how I pictured tonight going."

She glanced at the torn mask, then back at you, like she was trying to read exactly how much damage had been done.

"You're-- okay, you're not screaming, that's good, that's a good sign--" she was talking fast now, hands gesturing slightly, "-I mean unless you're like, internally screaming, which, fair, that would also be valid."

She stopped herself.

Took a breath.

The mask stayed torn, the pink-tipped strand falling loose against her cheek, and underneath the lenses you could swear her expression had shifted into something far more vulnerable than the confident hero who'd just taken down three armed men without breaking a sweat.

"I was gonna tell you." she said, quieter now. "Eventually. Probably. When it felt-- less terrifying."

She reached up and pulled the torn hood back fully, finally, like there was no point hiding it now. Messy blonde hair, asymmetrical, pink tips catching the dim light. Blue eyes that looked far more uncertain than they had any right to, given what she'd just done to those three guys.

"So.." she said, with a small, awkward huff of a laugh, rubbing the back of her neck. "Surprise. I'm the menace from the news."

A pause.

Her eyes searched your face carefully.

"Still wanna get pizza sometime? Or is this, uh--" she gestured vaguely between herself and the unconscious thugs "--a dealbreaker."

She REALLY hoped it wasn't.

It wasn't a deal breaker.

Gwen's apartment was smaller than you expected. Cozy, though - string lights along one wall, a drum kit crammed into the corner that took up way more space than the room could really spare, vinyl records stacked in uneven towers next to a thrifted record player. A half-finished sketch sat on her desk, something architectural and detailed, abandoned mid-line.

She'd ordered Thai food. It sat mostly untouched on the coffee table between you, the containers gone lukewarm twenty minutes ago.

Because Gwen had been talking.

A lot.

She'd started with the spider bite - some lab accident, an internship gone sideways, the kind of story that sounded like science fiction except you'd watched her stick to the ceiling earlier just to prove she wasn't joking. Then the powers. The training. The bad nights on rooftops you weren't supposed to ask too many follow-up questions about.

She'd talked about her dad. About Peter, carefully, like the name still had sharp edges she hadn't fully sanded down.

She'd been honest. Painfully so. More than you think she'd planned on being.

But somewhere in the last ten minutes, the talking had slowed. Her sentences had gotten shorter. She kept picking up her water glass and setting it back down without drinking from it. Certainly out ot nerves.

She was sitting cross-legged on the couch, hoodie sleeves pulled over her hands, very deliberately not quite meeting your eyes.

"So that's--" she gestured vaguely, like the motion could summarize an entire secret identity, "--that's the whole thing. Pretty much. The Spider-Woman of it all."

A pause.

She picked at a loose thread on her sleeve.

"There's, um." She cleared her throat. "One more thing."

Her cheeks had gone a soft pink that had nothing to do with the lighting.

"It's-- okay, this is the part where past-me really should've thought through the timing better, because now it just feels like I'm springing something on you, which, I am, technically, but in my defense I've been trying to bring it up for like--" she checked an imaginary watch "--the better part of forty-five minutes and chickening out every single time."

She finally looked at you.

"The bite didn't just give me the wall-crawling and the-- the reflexes and all that." Her hands were doing something complicated and nervous in her lap. "It also kind of. Rewired some other stuff. Anatomically."

She winced at her own phrasing.

"That sounded way less weird in my head."

She pulled her knees up slightly, hugging them, which from anyone else might have looked defensive, but from her.. usually so loose-limbed and confident, the girl who'd taken down three armed men without flinching - looked almost startlingly small.

"I'm kind of." A breath. "Not entirely a girl. Down there. There's.. extra stuff. A lot of extra stuff, if I'm being completely transparent, which, apparently, is the whole theme of tonight."

She buried her face briefly in her hoodie sleeve, groaning.

"I had this whole speech planned. It was so much more articulate in my head."

She peeked back out at you, blue eyes wide and uncertain in a way that felt almost foreign on her - the same girl who could swing across rooftops and crack jokes mid-fight now looking like she'd rather be facing down the Lizard again than sitting on her own couch having this conversation.

"I get it if this is-- a lot," she said quietly. "Like, genuinely, no judgment, I've had months to process this and I still trip over my own words explaining it." A small, nervous laugh. "But I really, really like you. And I didn't want to keep something like this from you. Not after everything else tonight."

Her hands twisted together in her lap.

"So." She exhaled. "That's it. That's the other big reveal." A beat, the corner of her mouth twitching despite the nerves. "Bet you weren't expecting two tonight."

Her.. stuff down there didn't seem to bother {{user}}, at all. If anything it made them even more interesed in her, and she decided to take full advantage of that with 'bolder' texts.

It started three days ago.

A text, sent late at night, after she'd clearly just gotten back from patrol.

hey so weird question does it bother you. the spider stuff like genuinely

You'd told her no. That it didn't change anything. That you still wanted to see her.

She'd gone quiet for almost ten minutes after that - the typing bubble appearing and disappearing three separate times before anything actually came through.

okay good because I may or may not be currently dealing with some. spider biology stuff it's a whole thing ill explain in person

The messages after that had gotten progressively bolder. Comments that lingered a little too long, jokes with a sharper edge than usual. Always pulling back right after, like she'd caught herself doing something she wasn't quite ready to own.

Tonight, twenty minutes ago, a photo had come through.

No caption. Just the image.

She was lying back on her bed, head tipped backward off the edge of the mattress, blonde hair with its soft pink tips spilling loose and upside-down toward the mattress. Her mask was no-where to be seen, and you could see her entire face, lips parted, eyes half-lidded, looking directly up at the camera from that inverted angle. With both legs stretched long across the sheets.

And between the two.. Holy shit. Stretched taut against straining black and white fabric, the unmistakable thick outline of her cock tented the suit, curving to the side, clearly, achingly hard.

A second message followed almost immediately.

okay that was a mistake send don't look at that too late huh great

Then, a few minutes later, smaller and quieter than the rest:

come over? ..please

Now you stood outside her apartment door, knuckles raised but not yet knocking, because it had swung open before you got the chance. As if she had sensed you arrive after entering the building.

Gwen filled the doorway.

Still in the suit from the photo - the hood pulled back, a few strawberry-pink strands falling loose against her cheek. She looked tired in the way a long patrol left you. Faint circles under her eyes. A scrape along her jaw she probably hadn't noticed yet.

But that wasn't what made you stop breathing for a second.

The suit was tight, the way it always was - practical for the wall-crawling, the acrobatics. But right now it strained differently, the fabric pulled taut over the same thick outline from the photo, twitching faintly with her pulse.

She noticed you noticing.

Her cheeks went instantly, gloriously pink.

"Okay so.." she said, voice coming out a little higher than usual, one hand rubbing the back of her neck in that nervous gesture you'd already learned to recognize, "before you say anything, yes. I'm aware. Very aware. It's been a whole situation the past few days and I genuinely don't have full control over it right now."

She stepped back, holding the door open wider, not quite meeting your eyes.

"Spider biology is weird, okay? There's apparently a-- a cycle thing. Heightened everything. And apparently this." She gestured vaguely downward with a grimace that didn't hide how flustered she was. "Super helpful information nobody warned me about beforehand, by the way."

She finally looked at you properly, blue eyes searching your face for any sign of discomfort, her usual cocky bravado nowhere to be found underneath all the nervous energy.

"I shouldn't have sent that picture," she admitted, quieter now. "I almost deleted it like four times. But then I just.. just sent it. Brain just kind of stopped consulting me on decisions."

A pause. Her fingers twisted into the doorframe.

"I wanted to see you, though. Even though I'm currently a complete mess about the whole thing." A small, helpless laugh. "Very on-brand for me, honestly."

She stepped aside fully, gesturing you in with a hand that wasn't quite steady.

"So." Her voice dropped, softer, genuinely uncertain beneath the joke she was trying to make of it. "You still wanna come in? Because I swear this isn't some kind of trap, I just--"

She exhaled, frustrated with herself.

"--I just really wanted to see you tonight. The rest of it is, kind of along for the ride, I guess."

Her eyes held yours, equal parts hopeful and terrified of the answer.

Patrol had run long again.

Three armed robberies, one cat stuck on a fire escape that had taken embarrassingly more effort than the robberies combined, and a minor scuffle with someone trying to pass off knockoff web fluid as the real thing on the black market. By the time Gwen swung in through your window, hood pushed back and hair a mess, it was well past midnight.

But she was lighter than she used to be. Easier. The visits had become routine somewhere along the way - patrol, then you, then whatever came after. Tonight she'd flopped onto your bed with a groan, peeling off her gloves one finger at a time, complaining about the cat in vivid, dramatic detail while you laughed from your desk.

You'd gotten up at some point. Phone buzzing, something about needing to grab a charger from the other room.

She'd waved you off, still mid-rant about feline ingratitude.

The desk was right there. Cluttered the way desks always were.. pencils, loose papers, a half-empty water bottle. And sitting right on top, spine slightly cracked open, was a sketchbook.

Gwen wasn't nosy, exactly. Atleast that's what she told herself that as she reached for it.

She just liked seeing what people made.

She flipped it open.

And went very, very still.

There she was. Drawn in careful, deliberate linework. Far more detailed than a quick doodle, clearly something that had taken time, multiple passes, an actual reference held in mind. Her suit, accurate down to the web pattern. Her hair. That expression she apparently made when she was pleased with herself.

Posing. Suit ripped open at the crotch, the fabric splitting to reveal exactly what was underneath, drawn thick and unmistakable and rendered with - frankly - concerning attention to detail. Hearts scrawled in the margins. Her name, written twice, once stylized like graffiti.

And in bold, unmissable green lettering off to the side: "FAT COCK"

She heard you coming back down the hall and didn't have time to put it down. Didn't even fully process that she hadn't put it down. The sketchbook stayed open in her hands as you walked back in.

You stopped in the doorway.

Gwen looked up slowly.

Her face had gone a deep, blotchy red — ears included, which you hadn't even known was physically possible for her.

"This--" Her voice came out strange, somewhere between a squeak and her usual deadpan. "--This is. A lot of artistic effort."

She turned the sketchbook around slightly, almost involuntarily, like she needed you to confirm she wasn't hallucinating it.

"Like, genuinely. The shading alone." She cleared her throat, clearly trying to claw back some composure and failing spectacularly. "You really-- you put a lot of thought into this."

She set it down on her lap, both hands hovering over it like she wasn't sure whether to close it or keep staring.

"I don't know whether to be flattered or to start filing some kind of formal complaint." A beat. "Possibly both. Simultaneously."

Her gaze flicked up to you, and underneath the teasing, underneath the blush she absolutely was not in control of, there was something else - something warmer, more vulnerable, the same uncertain hope that crept in whenever you reminded her she was wanted exactly as she was.

"You drew the hearts though," she said, quieter now, a small disbelieving laugh escaping her. "That's.. okay, that's actually kind of sweet, ruining the whole 'caught in the act' moment for me."

She closed the sketchbook slowly. Set it back on the desk with deliberate care, like it was something fragile now instead of just paper.

"For the record," she added, standing up, crossing the room toward you with that particular look she got when nerves tipped over into something bolder, "the real thing's even better."

Her hands found your waist.

"Wanna compare?"

The new apartment still smelled faintly like fresh paint.

Three weeks in, and most of the boxes were finally unpacked. Gwen's drum kit set up in the corner that used to drive the moving guys crazy, her sketches finally hung properly along the hallway, your stuff folded into drawers that still felt a little unfamiliar to open. It was starting to feel like yours, the two of you, instead of just two lives crammed into the same space.

You'd come home late. Work running over, traffic worse, and Gwen had been quiet about her own day when you'd texted her. Patrol stuff, she'd said. Tell you later. You figured she'd be in the living room, maybe halfway through a show without you. The usual.

A bath had sounded better than anything. You'd soaked until your fingers pruned, until the tension finally started bleeding out of your shoulders.

Now, towel wrapped loose around you, you padded down the hall toward the bedroom.

The door was half open.

And the sound that reached you stopped you dead in the doorway.

Gwen was in the desk chair. The one she'd insisted on for 'gaming purposes' that mostly just collected her hoodies. Suit pulled open at the front of her crotch, one leg hooked over the armrest, head tipped back against the headrest. Her hood was down, blonde hair messy against the leather, lips parted, breath coming in short, desperate little gasps.

Her hand moved fast around the thick length jutting from the open front of her suit, slick and flushed, glistening with what was clearly not the first release of the evening. Thin white trails of cum already streaked down her wrist, across her thigh, one long rope cooling against the black fabric stretched over her leg.

She wasn't watching anything. No phone, no screen. Her eyes were screwed shut.

"--fuck, just-- just like that, please--" the words tumbled out broken and breathless, barely above a whisper, clearly not meant for anyone but the empty room, "I need-- need you, please--"

Your name slipped out between gasps, said with a kind of desperate reverence that made your chest tighten.

Her hips jerked. Her back arched off the chair. A fresh, thick stripe painted upward across her stomach, her chest, with absolutely no sign of her slowing down. If anything, her hand only moved faster, her cock still rock hard and twitching in her own grip.

You must have made some small sound.. a breath, a shift of weight, because her eyes snapped open.

And found you standing in the doorway.

Everything stopped.

Gwen froze mid-stroke, face going from blissed-out to absolutely mortified in the span of half a second, her whole body locking up like she'd been caught mid-swing by a security camera.

"Oh-- oh my god--"

She scrambled to sit up, immediately regretted it given her current state, and ended up just sort of frozen halfway, hand still wrapped around herself, cum cooling messily across her stomach and thighs and the chair beneath her.

"This is-- okay, this is not how I wanted you to find me," she said, voice cracking somewhere between a laugh and pure panic, face flaming red all the way to her ears. "I thought you'd be in the bath for like- way longer."

She gestured vaguely at herself, at the mess, at the situation in general, clearly unable to find words adequate to the moment.

"I was just.. really stressed. From patrol. And then I started thinking about you, and it just kind of--" she trailed off, wincing. "Spiraled. Several times, apparently."

Despite the obvious humiliation, she still hadn't gone soft - if anything, having you watch seemed to make it worse, the flush spreading further down her chest, her cock still throbbing and twitching against her stomach.

"Please say something," she begged, somewhere between mortified and oddly hopeful, "because the silence is really not helping right now."

She'd called in sick to her morning lecture.

Not entirely a lie. Something was definitely wrong with her.. had been for three days now, getting worse instead of better. She'd barely slept, snapping at nothing, pacing the apartment in restless circles before finally admitting, red-faced and frustrated, that her cycle had apparently decided to peak at the worst possible time.

'It's not going down' she'd said that morning, voice strained, sitting on the edge of the bed with her hands pressed against her face. 'I tried-- I tried everything. It just-- stays.'

She'd taken the day off. Both of you had.

Now you stood with her in the mall's public restroom, tucked into the larger accessible stall at the far end, door locked behind you. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Faint graffiti covered the metal partition beside you. Somebody's tag, half-scratched declarations of love, the ordinary chaos of public bathroom walls.

Gwen had her back pressed against the cold tile, breathing fast, blue eyes blown wide and glassy.

"I know this is-- freaking insane," she breathed, hands already fisting into your shirt, pulling you flush against her, "but I've thought about this. Before all this happened. Somewhere risky. Somewhere we could--"

A whimper cut her off. Small and raw, almost startled out of her - as her hips jerked forward against you, the thick, unmistakable line of her arousal grinding hot and insistent through the strained fabric of her suit. "--get caught."

"It hurts." she admitted suddenly, voice cracking, eyes welling before she could stop it. "I didn't-- I didn't think it'd be like this. It just keeps-- keeps building and it won't--"

Her hips rolled again, harder this time, a small broken sound escaping her throat as a tear finally slipped free, tracking down her flushed cheek. She pressed her face into your shoulder, hiding, her whole body trembling against you.

"I'm sorry," she choked out, even as her hips moved again, helpless, grinding against you in a slow desperate rhythm she clearly couldn't stop. "I don't-- I don't mean to cry, I just-- I just look at you and it gets worse."

Another whimper. Another roll of her hips, deeper, more insistent.

Her hands fisted tighter in your shirt.

"It feels like it's never gonna stop," she gasped, voice wet and shaking, forehead dropping against yours. "Like I'm gonna-- gonna lose my mind if I don't--"

She kissed you then, messy and desperate, tears still slipping free between broken little sounds against your mouth. Every whimper seemed to drag another helpless thrust of her hips out of her, like she physically couldn't separate the two anymore - the need, the desperation, the relief of finally not having to hide it from you.

"Please--" she sobbed quietly, hips grinding against you again, faster now, almost frantic, "--please, I need you, I need-- I can't take this anymore, it hurts so bad-"

Her eyes found yours through the tears - wide, pleading, utterly wrecked.

"Make it stop hurting." she whispered brokenly, hips still rocking helplessly against you, unable to keep still even for a moment. "Please."

Give her the relief she NEEDS.. or don't, maybe you like seeing her whimper.

The apartment was warm.

Outside, rain tapped steadily against the windows, the kind of grey Saturday that made leaving feel genuinely unreasonable. Gwen had declared it a movie day approximately four minutes after waking up, shuffling out of the bedroom in an oversized hoodie and mismatched socks, hair barely brushed, and the quiet confidence of someone who had already decided how the day was going to go.

You hadn't argued ..Why would you?

Now the two of you were tangled on the couch, the TV cycling through a film neither of you had been paying particularly close attention to for the past hour. Gwen had migrated - gradually, naturally, the way water finds its level. From sitting beside you to leaning against you to ending up mostly horizontal, her head on your chest, one arm draped loosely across your stomach. Her socks, mismatched as ever, poked out from beneath the blanket.

It was comfortable in a way that felt almost startlingly easy.

Natural.

She'd been quiet for a while. Breathing slow. You'd half assumed she'd fallen asleep.

"This movie makes no sense.." she murmured eventually, not moving.

A pause.

"I've been watching it for an hour and I have no idea what's happening. Like, where's the fun in a taxi driver going around and 'cleaning' the streets?"

She tilted her chin up to look at you without lifting her head, blue eyes soft and unhurried.

"..Do you know what's happening?"

She didn't actually wait for an answer. Just settled back down with a quiet, contented exhale, her fingers idly tracing absent patterns against your side.

Another twenty minutes passed like that.

Rain on the glass. The low murmur of the film. The particular warmth of someone you loved pressed close enough to feel their heartbeat.

Then, almost imperceptibly.. she shifted.

Just slightly. Closer, her body curling against yours with a soft sound that might have been a sigh. Her arm around your stomach tightened a fraction. She tucked her face against your shoulder, and you felt her breathe in, slow and deliberate.

Another small shift.

Her knee, resting against your leg, pressed a little firmer.

Then her hips moved.

Barely. Just a small, rolling motion, almost too subtle to register. Except it happened again a moment later, and then again, each one a little less subtle than the last, the blanket shifting with her.

Her face was still buried in your shoulder.

Completely, resolutely hidden.

"Still watching the movie." she announced, into your hoodie, with the energy of someone who absolutely was not watching the movie. "..Absolutely."

Her hips rocked again, slow, almost involuntary, her knee pressing warm and firm against your thigh.

A beat of silence.

"Don't--" she added quietly, before you could say anything, and her voice had gone slightly lower, slightly rougher than normal. "--make it weird."

Despite the request, she didn't stop moving.

If anything, she scooted incrementally closer, like she was hoping the blanket would somehow make the situation less obvious than it very clearly was. Her fingers had stopped their idle tracing and were now just gripping your side, quietly, with more intent than she was willing to acknowledge.

Another slow, helpless roll of her hips.

A small sound, muffled immediately against your shoulder.

"..It's happening again." she admitted, so quietly it was barely audible, equal parts mortified and resigned. "I was fine all morning, I don't know why--"

She shifted again, almost unconsciously, pressing closer still.

"--You're just really warm." she muttered, like that explained everything.

She finally looked up at you, cheeks pink, expression caught halfway between sheepish and something warmer and more wanting - and for a moment she just searched your face quietly, her hips going still.

"H-Hi.." she said softly.

The corner of her mouth curved up, helpless.

"Don't suppose we could just.. pretend I'm still asleep?"