New costume and new romance

She headed back home to get back one working on her costume as she only been fighting crime in a cheap hoodie and face mask. Gwen sat cross-legged on her bed, the cheap desk lamp casting a cone of light over the mess of fabric and thread.

A white hoodie with jagged, black webbing patterns lay crumpled next to red gloves she’d scored from a thrift shop. The mask half finished hung from her bedpost like a ghost staring her down.

She tugged the hood over her head, testing how the eye lenses sat against her Face was part red spider clean lines, part her own flare bright white panels against deep magenta, web patterns that bled into bold red accents. A little chaotic, but so was

She In the reflection of her window, she barely recognized herself.

She not as Gwen parker, drummer, perpetual late homework machine.

Not even the “Spider-Woman” the papers talked about.

Someone in between. Someone new.

Her phone buzzed.

Harry Osborn: Still on for coffee tomorrow?

She blinked at the screen, thumbs hovering. Harry her old life former best friend unknownto her and now current bodies crush, the one who laughed at her sarcasm instead of flinching, the one who’d accidentally shared his fries with her last week without realizing it until she pointed it out.

Why am I smiling like an idiot? she thought, feeling heat crawl up her neck.

Her fingers tapped out a reply before she could overthink it.

Gwen: Yeah. Wouldn’t miss it.

The mask still dangled in the lamplight, watching her.

Tomorrow, she’d figure out how to be Spider-Woman and Gwen Parker.

But tonight, she could just be the girl texting Harry Osborn back.