♪ sp-ider gwen ♪

And for most of it, Lydia had dreamed about getting out of here. There had been Stanford pamphlets in her bedroom since she graduated from fifth grade, and a multistep plan to get the hell out of Beacon Hills and on to a better life. 

The Fields Medal. That’s what she told Stiles, back when life was about boys and looking good. It had felt like surviving, back then. 

Boy, she didn’t know a damn thing about surviving before Peter Hale.

Manicured fingers walk across table and stop in front of Gwen, making the ‘gimme’ gesture. 

“Let me look at your notes while you tell me about where you came from.”

She should be in New York. Any New York. Not here. 

The hand jars Gwen back to herself, and she swallows the sick feeling in her throat and gives a jerky nod. Trying to keep her shuffling at a minimum, Gwen finds her sad pile of notes and hands them over. It’s easy to ignore Lydia’s short tone; Gwen did interrupt her studying, after all. She knows it’s not exactly the best way to go about meeting people. 

“New York. Land of Opportunity, great pizza, and a superhero every block nowadays.”

“Sorry. Mrs. Finch’s class. You just started, right?”

She closes the big, dusty book, a strip of paper sticking out of the bottom so that she doesn’t lose her place. Latin was a bitch. 

And oh look, a very high school problem, because the girl she’s talking to has flawless skin and great hair and Lydia is feeling stupid insecure about her baggy sweater and leggings right about now. 

“I’m Lydia, nice to meet you.”

The movement has her watching the book, curiosity getting the better of her. She can’t read the cover at a glance, though, and heck, maybe this really was the right girl to ask for help on French. Was that Latin?

“Gwen Stacy, token new girl. Nice to meet you, Lydia.” 

Weird thing is, she means it. Meeting new people is always awkward, and this is no exception, because Gwen has spent her life letting people stumble into her life and consistently being surprised when they stay, but she’s out of sorts here. She has no idea where her father is, if she even has a father in this universe. The temptation to go looking for him, for herself, might be what’s keeping her here in this little town in the middle of Cali. That, and the constant weird vibe washing over her like waves on a shoreline. 

But this is what Beacon Hills has made of Lydia, and no amount of great eye make up is going to hide it. 

(She sees that same wariness, that same suspicion and exhaustion in Stiles. Scott. It had been building in Allison’s eyes too, before she died.)

“Yeah.”

The kind of sigh that would move mountains and Lydia looks away from her absolutely fascinating reading about skinwalkers and all the ways they can kill you, to look at the girl across from her.

Looking down at her chewed nails, she glances through her bangs at the redhead again, watching the lines of her face, how her curls bounce when she moves. This is a girl that has to know she’s beautiful, but isn’t flaunting it. In fact, she looks like she’s using makeup to cover up some pretty dark circles under her eyes. 

Gwen’s gut is to think you don’t know half of what the world can throw at you, but she can’t, because something tells her this girl knows more than the stresses of schoolwork. The depth of the sigh doesn’t discount her theory. 

“A new day.”

[ Her lips purse, and her stance widens a bit. It does make her mouth slide shut, all of his talking, because truth be told, it’s kind of the most he’s said to her since, well. This Peter’s never said so much to her. 

She wants to fight it, to argue, to throw her fists down and yell you can’t even look at me, how dare you want to tell me where to live, but she’s also a realist. She’s being offered a place to stay, to regroup, to try and forge some semblance of a life, here, in this foreign place where everything is tauntingly similar. She’s stubborn, but she’s not an idiot. 

The idea of meeting more people, of finding some sanity outside of all of this, is pretty relieving, too. ]

Then let me talk to her. I don’t know anyone here, Peter, and I won’t be some squatter invading everyone’s space. 

[ God, did she know the other Gwen too? How many more times is she going to have to look at people and see her own ghost in their eyes? ] 

I appreciate it. I do. 

[ Deep breath. Her hand reaches out and grazes the hem of Peter’s shirt, then pulls back just as quickly. ]

[ Peter’s insisting, of course. She keeps the eye roll to herself. ]

I have an apartment. 

[ and she has to confront the idea that she doesn’t exist in spider-Gwen’s reality, or exists very differently. She hasn’t had to introduce herself for a while. ]

I … am was (am?) a spy. I like my privacy. It’s not in the best part of town, but you can stay there until you make up your mind.

[ And her mouth hangs open a bit, she can’t help it, because this stranger, this woman who she’s known for about twenty seconds, has already emotionally prepared herself to lend an apartment to a stranger. An intruder. ]

You’re offering to let me live in your apartment. 

[ Everything’s happening ten steps too fast for any sane person to keep up. She’s had to learn to roll with the literal and figurative punches in the last week, but still, this seems an awful lot like dangling meat in front of a lion. Trap springs to mind, not the first time in this new world, but -

She’s friends with Peter, and would he really set her up to fall? 

She says spy, and Gwen’s seen enough movies to know what that could entail. A safehouse maybe? Is she going to be living in this apartment with this woman? ] 

Are you sure?

It - could be a long time before I find a ticket home.