Chapter 99: The Beginnings of a New Heroine

Parker House — Evening

Back home, Peter and Gwen exchanged a few words with Aunt May before heading upstairs. They first stopped by Gwen's room so she could grab a few things she would need, then headed straight to Peter's room, determined to start thinking right away about what her future superhero identity could become.

Peter settled comfortably on his bed, finally enjoying a moment of calm after this particularly eventful day, while Gwen sat down at his desk. She placed a pencil case and a notebook on it, turned on the computer, and waited a few seconds for the screen to display properly. But when she reached the login page, she stopped short. Obviously, she didn't know the password. So she turned toward the person in question.

— "Hey, what's your password?"

— "SpiderMan."

— "Seriously?"

— "Yeah, I know what you're thinking. No need to say it."

Peter let out a small laugh while Gwen, for her part, couldn't stop an amused smile from appearing on her face. She still found it pretty funny that he had chosen his own superhero name as his password, especially considering how much he usually cared about protecting his identity. However, she decided not to add anything, turned back toward the screen, entered the password, then opened Google.

— "Okay, I'm on Google! What do I do now?"

— "You do some research. Find examples of outfits, costumes, or suits that you like and, using your imagination, visualize what your costume could look like and put it down on paper. You can even make several versions if you want. The goal is just to know what your costume will look like so we don't work on it for nothing."

— "Alright! And then?"

— "Focus on that first. Trust me, that's already going to take you a lot of time."

— "Alright."

She didn't add anything else and immediately immersed herself in her task with obvious motivation. She began scrolling through different images, observing the shapes, materials, color combinations, and anything that could fuel her imagination, before gradually putting her own ideas down on paper.

Peter watched her for a few moments from his bed and, happy to see her so invested, gave a small smile. However, the fatigue accumulated throughout the day quickly got the better of him. His eyelids grew heavy, he slowly closed his eyes, and it wasn't long before he fell asleep.

Two hours later…

— "Peter! Peter, wake up! Peter!"

The young man suddenly jolted awake and half sat up in his bed, completely disoriented. A small trace of drool had formed at the corner of his mouth and, when he realized it, he hurriedly wiped it away with his sleeve before looking around to understand what was happening. His gaze eventually landed on Gwen who, unlike him, seemed full of energy and completely excited about what she had just finished.

— "W-What…? What's going on…?"

Without even answering him right away, Gwen grabbed all the sheets of paper she had spread across the desk and held them out to him. Still half asleep, Peter took them and began examining them one by one. The further he went through the drawings, the more the visible fatigue on his face gradually gave way to genuine surprise. The quality of the sketches was already remarkable, but what impressed him just as much was the amount of work she had managed to produce in only two hours.

Among all her research, three main ideas clearly stood out. They all shared a very similar silhouette, but each had its own color combination. What Gwen had imagined didn't really look like a simple superhero costume comparable to his, either.

The whole thing seemed to fall somewhere between an outfit that could almost be worn on a daily basis and an actual suit designed for combat. The spider-shaped logo remained relatively discreet and, despite the many differences, Peter could clearly recognize the influence of his own costume, the very one Gwen had once designed for him. The result looked somewhat strange at first glance, but above all, particularly original.

The different versions mixed white, black, pink, red, blue, and even purple, and Gwen had even thought about changing the color of the mask's lenses depending on each design. Peter continued examining the sheets carefully, genuinely impressed by the way she had managed to create variations of the same idea while giving each version its own identity.

— "Wow… she amazes me." he thought.

— "So, what do you think?"

— "I like them. I'm really impressed that you did all this so quickly. But now… you have to choose which one you prefer."

— "I know, but right now, I'm torn. I really don't know which one to choose… but since I've already done this, what else can I do?"

He remained silent for a few seconds, thinking about what he could give her to do while she took the time to make her final choice about her costume. An idea eventually came to him, and he gestured toward the computer with a slight movement of his head.

— "Uh… go into my files, look for a folder called Spider-Man and, inside it, look for another folder called 'Web-Swinging'."

Perplexed but immediately intrigued by this new instruction, Gwen returned to the desk and began going through the computer files, following his directions precisely. After a few moments, she found the folder in question.

— "Okay, I'm there."

— "Now, click on the PDF document and study everything that's written in it."

— "Huh? But what am I supposed to stu—"

Gwen abruptly stopped when she opened the document. More than fifty long pages had just appeared in front of her, all filled with explanations, diagrams, and information that, at first glance, seemed completely insane compared to what she had imagined she would simply have to learn in order to move around using webs.

Peter, who knew perfectly well what reaction to expect, eventually got out of bed and joined her in front of the screen with a slightly amused expression. Gwen, meanwhile, continued staring at the document with an expression that mixed surprise and confusion.

— "Is this really what I think it is…?"

— "Yeah. If you want to fly like I do, you're going to have to study and understand all of this."

She quickly scrolled through several pages, looking over the different explanations in an attempt to understand exactly what Peter had just gotten her into. After a few seconds, her eyes widened slightly as she began to recognize the logic behind everything she was reading.

— "I see… it's physics."

Then another realization suddenly crossed her mind. She immediately turned toward Peter, almost shocked.

— "Wait… does that mean you do these kinds of calculations every time you fly?!"

— "Exactly! But to be honest… I'm not too worried. I'm sure you'll understand it quickly. After all, this is still nothing. You'll see when it comes to practice. That's a whole other level. But if you can already perfectly integrate all of this into your mind, it'll already be a huge advantage for your training, trust me."

Where such a large amount of information would probably have been enough to discourage many people before they even started, Gwen instead only seemed even more motivated.

She gently slapped her cheeks with both hands, as if to give herself a little boost of energy, then gave the screen a determined smile.

— "Alright, let's do this!"

She immediately repositioned herself in her chair and seriously began reading the first few pages, taking notes in her notebook whenever a piece of information seemed important or a concept seemed worth remembering. Peter stayed by her side for a short while longer before simply going back to lie down on his bed.

He had enough confidence in his girlfriend's intelligence and abilities to know that she would manage to understand a good part of the document without him needing to constantly stay behind her. So he closed his eyes again and, still tired, soon fell asleep once more.

An hour later, however, a voice interrupted his sleep for the second time that night.

— "Peter. Hey, Peter…"

His eyelids slowly opened, and his still-sleepy gaze eventually found Gwen, still sitting in front of the computer with her notebook nearby.

— "Hey… there's something I don't really understand, could you explain it to me?"

Peter remained perfectly still for a few seconds, as if his brain needed a little time to accept that he was going to have to get up once again.

He eventually let out a long sigh, painfully sat up, then got out of bed with all the fatigue and resignation in the world. After all, he was the one who had agreed to help her and teach her everything she needed to know. Now he was going to have to see that decision through to the end.

— "Alright…"

TO BE CONTINUED.