Young Blood
Pairing: Gwen Stacy x gn!reader
Summary: You’re new and Gwen’s forced to show you around. It doesn’t end up being as tedious as she was expecting.
Warnings: mild astv spoilers, my writing lol
Word count: 1.6k
Notes: listen, i know this will get like 20 notes, but i needed to do this okay. i love her sm. this also my first time writing anything marvel related...as i’m sure you can tell.
Masterlist
Gwen dug the heels of her palms into her eyes as she walked up the wall, unsuccessfully fighting off another exasperated groan.
She shouldn’t have been doing this. She should be off in another dimension fixing anomalies and fighting bad guys, not this. Anyone could greet new recruits, so why Miguel insisted on making her do it was an eternal mystery. She was honestly starting to think that he just liked annoying her.
Jessica offered her a sympathetic smile when delivering the news, but Gwen didn’t want sympathy, she wanted a mission.
Still, she followed orders, knowing that disobeying would only put her further down the mission list. Plus, with Pavitr and Hobie busy, what else was there to do?
She stepped up to the entrance and her eyes found you immediately. You were easy to spot. All newbies were. They all had the same awe-struck reaction to the compound which Gwen couldn’t blame them for, considering she had been there once herself.
Your mask was off, hanging limp in your hand while your eyes roamed the vast space with a wonder she felt only months prior. It brought a smile to her face.
“Insane right?” she prompted gently as she approached, drawing your eyes to her. “I had the same reaction. It’s not every day you get to see so many spider-people in one place.”
“I didn’t know there was this many. I thought I was the only one,” you admitted, astonishment clear in your voice.
Gwen chuckled. She knew the feeling well. “We all did, but there’s more of us than you can imagine.” She stuck out a hand. “I’m Gwen, by the way. I’m your appointed tour guide.”
You took her hand, gave it a firm shake. “I know, Jessica told me. Nice to meet you, Gwen.”
“Likewise. What Earth are you from?”
“Uh,” you trailed off briefly, tapping at your watch. “Earth-69.”
A snort escaped her before she could stop it. You looked up at her, wide-eyed, while she fought to contain herself.
“I’m sorry, I’m—it’s nothing. I’m actually from Earth-65. Never met anyone from the same sector.”
Brows raised, you remarked, “Well, there’s a first time for everything, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” She took a look at your suit and, seeing the abundance of white expertly weaved in with the mixture of red and black, couldn’t help asking, “So, why white? Most of us use some combination of red and blue. Besides me, obviously.”
“I want my enemies to see me coming,” you replied, sending her a slightly off-kilter grin that made her unsure whether you were joking. She smirked.
“Foreboding. I like it.” She turned, signaling you to follow. “Now, come on. As you can see, we have a lot of ground to cover, and Miguel will want to brief you as soon as possible.”
You obeyed, following her as she led you around headquarters, showing you the ins and outs of every winding, overlapping corridor while informing you of the group’s purpose. Well, as much as she could without ruining Miguel’s big presentation.
About a third of the way in, she said, “I should probably start introducing you to the others.” Gwen looked around, spotting a few vaguely recognizable masked faces. She pointed to one with a large white spider on his chest.
“That’s Peter.”
He gave you a polite salute which you returned, giving him a compliment about his suit as well. A familiar plastic Lego figure came ambling down the way. Gwen pointed to him.
“That’s Peter.”
The Lego twisted his hooked handpiece in your direction. You gave him a startled wave in response, looking thoroughly perplexed. Next, a car came cruising along and she pointed at it.
“That’s also Peter.”
The car honked as it sped by. You didn’t even react this time. Up ahead, Gwen spotted Ben, sitting off to the side with his tightly curled up to his chest. She sighed, halfheartedly pointed in his direction.
“That’s—”
“—let me guess, Peter?” you cut in, shooting her an unimpressed look.
She laughed. “No, that’s Ben.”
You let out a quiet oh and gave him a concerned look. Ben roused at the sound of his name, looking at the both of you with an absolutely pitiful expression.
“I would greet you guys, but I’m in the middle of a very traumatic flashback,” he moaned, overblown sorrow tinging his words.
Your eyebrows knitted together, and you started to say something, but Gwen pushed you forward by your shoulders, throwing a bye, Ben! over her shoulder. “Trust me, it isn’t worth it,” she mumbled at the confused look you gave her.
She continued guiding you by your shoulders, ignoring the odd looks from passing spiders, until you stopped short suddenly, making her crash into your back.
You were frozen, mouth agape, and eyes locked on something across the way. “Is that a t-rex?”
Following your gaze, Gwen beamed and nodded. “Yep. That’s Spider-Rex.” You gaped.
“Hey Pter!” she yelled with a wave. A ground-shaking roar echoed through the compound in response, scaring more than a few spiders and making Gwen chuckle. After a few more moments of gawking, you unfroze and continued following her, though your eyes still trailed the dinosaur in the distance.
The rest of the tour went without a hitch, the only small stops being a break to pet Spider-Cat and a short introduction to Margo. Soon enough, she was leading you down the long, dark hall to Miguel’s sanctuary.
Miguel, seemingly sensing your guys’ incoming presence, activated his platform and let it start making its way down. Very, very slowly. He wasn’t even halfway down by the time you guys made it into the heart of his den. Gwen barely resisted facepalming. He did this with every newbie, and it got more embarrassing each time. She leaned over to you, suppressing a grimace at the bewildered look on your face.
“I know, it’s slow. He just really likes his dramatic entrances,” she explained away, watching Miguel’s platform descend from above ever so slowly.
You both stood there for minutes, until finally, the platform stopped, and Miguel turned to peer down on you with a look that would have made Gwen cower a few months ago, but now just made her want to heave a deep sigh.
“Miguel, this is the new recruit from Earth-69,” she announced, voice rising at the end with the remnants of a poorly contained laugh. You didn’t seem to catch it, but Miguel did. He gave her a look that told her to knock it off and she did. Hesitantly.
He stepped off the platform and approached, eyes solely on you. “I see. Welcome. We’re glad to have you, but unfortunately, your briefing will have to wait as something has come up.” He turned his gaze to Gwen then, and her posture straightened as she realized what he was about to say.
“Gwen, I’ve got a mission for you.”
“Yes! Finally,” Gwen replied. But he was giving her that look. Her excitement wavered, realization setting in. “Please, don’t say tha—”
“You’ll be needing a partner for this mission.”
Gwen groaned. She hated partner missions. Even when she got the opportunity to pair up with people she liked, she much preferred to go solo. She just worked better alone—always had and always would. She tried to plead with Miguel, “C’mon, Miguel, you know I’m—"
“This is non-negotiable, Gwen,” he cut her off with that annoyingly authoritative tone that she couldn’t stand. “Pick a partner and get going ASAP. I want this done as quickly as possible.”
He walked off then, likely to find Jessica, leaving Gwen to sulk. And she did for about thirty seconds before pulling herself together. When Miguel wanted something done, it needed to get done. She could sulk more later. For now, she shifted her focus to finding an apt partner.
Her go-to’s were off the table. Pavitr was off on his own solo mission and Hobie was off doing lord knew what. Probably something anarchy related. She would have to find someone else.
Jessica was always busy these days, and she was taking less and less missions as her due date neared anyway, so she was off the table. She wasn’t asking Ben because she valued her remaining sanity. Peter B was an option, but he’d want to bring his baby along and Gwen was not equipped to deal with that. But maybe Web-Slinger would work. Or one of the various Peters. Or…maybe someone new.
Her eyes drifted over to you, still at her side despite the tour being technically over. She sized you up, once, twice, then one more time for good measure. You could work, but she knew nothing about how you operated in the field. The entire time, you watched her with a raised brow, unafraid of her judgment.
She crossed her arms, leveled you with a careful look. “On a scale from 1-10, how would you rate your combat ability?”
“10/10, but I may be a bit biased,” you responded immediately, still maintaining eye contact.
Her chin jerked up, eyes narrowing. “Confident, okay. How about web-slinging ability?”
“9.5/10.”
“9.5?”
“I might’ve hit a bird last time,” you said with a small grimace, “but everything else was flawless. Promise.”
That was good enough for Gwen. She uncrossed her arms and stepped closer, giving you a sly smile.
“Well then, newbie, how would you like to go on your first mission?”
You were pulling on your mask before she could even finish, red fabric veiling your wide smirk. “Let’s do it.”
With a nod, she inputted the coordinates Miguel sent her and watched as a corresponding portal spawned with a brilliant burst of light and color. The sight never got old, no matter how many times she saw it. You stepped up to her side and she sent you a sideways glance, a smile creeping onto her face.
Partner missions sucked, but she had a feeling this one wouldn’t be so bad.
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A/N: Happens almost right after Under the Red Hood
"All you needed was this?" The adult, Dick Grayson, tossed Jason Grace a golden coin.
Grace caught the drachma and flipped it instinctively. It, of course, didn't switch into any weapons like Ivlivs used to.
"Yes, the Constantine guy said any magic there can work here as well."
"I had to break in and steal from someone's collection for an real Greek drachma."
"You couldn't find one on E-bay?"
"It's called C-bay in this dimension, and yes I could, but we don't have time to verify authenticity."
In the background, the rest of Dick's family perched on rafters, chairs, and inconvenient dinosaurs and pennies as they carefully watched Grace twist the coin around in his hands. He knew that they're carefully monitoring him, making mental notes for their little reports later on about his dimension, his powers, everything, really.
"So according to you," Grace said, "You tried to bring someone back from the dead."
"My parents," Dick replied. "And I didn't try, a genie took advantage of me when I was drunk and made a wish."
"But he can't bring back people who have been dead for so long, so he brought back your most recently deceased family."
"Jason Todd," Dick supplied.
"But he couldn't even do that as well, because he brought me, Jason Grace, back to life instead, and now I'm here instead of him."
"Honestly I don't see what's wrong with this," one of the bats (that's got to be how they think of themselves, Jason Grace figured, since they all have a symbol of a bat on their clothes) replied. "This Jason isn't cutting heads off stuffing them in duffel bags."
"Glad I'm better than that," Grace said, before turning the humidifier he asked for on and shined a light on it. He ignored their curious questions and tossed the drachma into the rainbowy mist.
"Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbows, please show me...Nico di Angelo."
This caused the looming dark mass of the old guy that called himself Bat Man to stir from his seat in front of the massive computer in the cave. "This wasn't the plan, you were supposed to call for Jason."
"What if only I was brought back to life and he's not? We'd have wasted a drachma," Grace explained. "Nico's my best friend and he knows about death, he'll be able to help."
Slowly the mist shimmered and its colors changed, until they could see two forms cuddling under a tree. Suddenly, the smell of ozone crackled in the cave, and Dick took a sharp look at Grace, whose expression didn't change an iota.
"Nico! Nico!"
The form of a short napping boy with three clawmarks on his face blearily opened his eyes. He shook awake the blond boy napping next to him. "Will, I'm hallucinating Jason."
"Wh-Jason?" Will's eyes snapped open to see Jason Grace in an Iris message looking out at them. "I-I see him too."
Nico's eyes darted up to Jason again. "Jason? How-Jason!"
One of the brightest smiles Jason had ever seen on Nico bloomed on his face as he dashed up to the Iris message. He paused right before slamming into it and dispersing the mist. "Jason, what happened? Are you in another Underworld? What do you need me to do?"
Jason grinned, Nico's happiness infecting him and swept away the doom and gloom of Gotham, he can even ignore Will in the background holding Nico's hand. "I'm alive again! These guys," he jerked a hand to point at the rest of the bat family, "Accidentally brought me back alive. But, and this is going to sound crazy, I do have a favor to ask you."
Nico gave him an unimpressed look. "Bring it, crazy is my life."
The rest of the bats tensed as they waited for Jason to ask Nico for help and clarification.
"So you and Will are dating now? Tell me everything that's happened since I died! Is Apollo back to being a god? How's Piper doing? I heard Leo's back! Tell him I said hi! And what's the progress on the shrines I've been designing?"
That was apparently the final straw, as the bat man grunted and almost ran with the fit of manic energy right where Jason was standing talking to Nico.
"Forget those questions," the bat man said, trying and failing to shove Jason aside. "Within the last 24 hours, did anyone from your dimension encounter a Jason Todd? We have reason to believe that the two of them were switched."
"No we don't," Jason said. "There's a chance he's still dead. Isn't that a good thing? All you guys talked about was how he's a homicidal maniac."
"There was a strange guy but I don't know if his name is Jason Todd," Nico said.
"Big, buff, black hair with a tuft of white hair in front?," Will asked. "That's the only stranger recently, sweetie."
A lightbulb in the cave burst.
Grace's face was still perfectly smooth. "Nico, he's dangerous. That wasn't a hyperbole, this guy came back from the dead before and immediately begin a crime spree in his home city."
"He won't hurt innocent children," the bat man insisted. "He's dangerous but he's not deranged, but he does need to come home and be detained."
"He slit my throat," one of the teenage bats said. "Probably. It might have been him that slit my throat. I got better though."
Nico looked unimpressed, "Well you don't need to worry about him anymore. We found him bleeding from the neck and then he died from bloodloss before we could do anything."
"Don't give us that crap," the bat man said. "Your Jason said he also suffered life threatening injuries before the switch happened, but he was found completely healed. Bring Jason here, now."
"Can't, he's dead," Nico said in a deadtone. "But don't worry, we gave him the correct funeral rights before cremation. I can show you his urn." He turned to Jason.
"Jason," Nico said in Ancient Greek. "You need to find a way to run away. These are the dangerous people. I could sense how Jason Todd died. It was bloodloss from filicide, Jason. His father killed him before he was brought to us. And now he wants to finish the job. Please stay safe and make your way back to us." The Iris message flickered before it died out.
in the morning, when the rest of the family was sleeping and Jason Grace was in his containment chamber ("Stop calling our guestroom a containment chamber, Master Bruce."), Bruce played the footage from the cave over and over again.
He knew Ancient Greek, of course he did. He learned both Ancient Greek during med school.
"It was filicide," the strange boy had said. "His father killed him."
"His father killed him."
"His father killed."
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