After leaving Dante and Gwen to their secrets, Felicia Hardy was leaning against the brick wall outside Smokie’s Diner, browsing social dia. Yet her mind kept circling back to Dante like a moth to a fla, replaying his dismissal over and over. What gutted her wasn’t his insistence on keeping Gwen’s secret, but how easily he had dismissed her. No hesitation, no “Hey, let explain”. Just one “Please”, and she was supposed to walk away like a good girl who knew her place.
‘Would it kill him to at least pretend I mattered?’
This was after she had surrendered her body to him, letting him drag her consciousness out for Astral Projection. Such trust didn’t co cheap, not for soone who has spent her life learning that the only person you could rely on was yourself and others would absolutely screw you over.
And yesterday she had played relationship counselor between him and Silvija after Death showed up, helping smooth things over with another woman. Despite being a complete idiot about it, she wanted him to be happy, at least to repay for what he had done.
The worst part was that the bla was solely hers.
She went after Death’s boyfriend since he had looked like the ultimate prize. Mysterious, powerful, and devastatingly handso—he was everything her thief’s heart craved.
But it wasn’t just the power that ended up hooking her. It was his principles.
That day at the café, he had warned her, despite Death herself telling him not to interfere. He had gone against a cosmic entity to save soone he’d never t. He hadn’t asked for anything in return. He had just... given her the information she needed to survive. Then walked away, expecting nothing in return.
It was recklessly stupid, but also the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her, and now, this had led to her ruin.
‘New lesson learned. Never catch feelings for soone else’s boyfriend.’
It never ended well.
She swallowed down the complicated emotions and focused back on her phone. Eighty percent of her feed was just the new superhero.
‘Ghost Spider. What a sick na.’
Whoever she was, she had talent. The costu design alone required serious skill. Then there were those web-shooters with strong adhesion to let her swing between buildings. Such an insane gadget couldn’t be bought on Amazon. And even if Ghost Spider was a super science genius, she would have spent a lot of ti experinting in the lab.
‘How long can she keep her identity secret?’
The thought struck her like lightning.
‘Secret.’
When Gwen had realized Dante knew her secret, her reaction wasn’t ordinary panic. That was terror. Gwen’s secret seed to be sothing that would destroy her entire life if revealed to the public.
‘Oh my god. Is Gwen Stacy Ghost Spider?’
Her heart hamred against her chest as pieces started to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. Gwen’s sudden absence from ESU earlier, the dark circles under her eyes, and the way she’d walked into Smokie’s looking like she’d been fighting for her life—everything made perfect sense now.
She still needed sothing if she wanted to be smug about it in front of Dante. After all, theories weren’t evidence.
Felicia pulled up facebook, and it only took a few monts to find a full body professional photograph of Ghost Spider next to Amanda, a local fitness celebrity who loved flaunting her stats online.
‘This is perfect.’
She grabbed her tablet from inside her jacket. The tiny device had enough processing power to compete with last year’s supercomputers while being extrely efficient, one of the most impressive pieces of tech money could buy on the black market. In reality, it was a prototype Stark Industries designed for military intelligence operations. It ca preloaded with a lot of artificial intelligence tools.
She reconstructed 3D models of both celebrity and Ghost Spider from the photograph. Adding known asurents to Amanda’s 3D model allowed the AI to work out Ghost Spider’s approx asurents.
Watching the progress bar crawl across the screen gave her a new type of anxiety.
SUBJECT A (Ghost Spider): Body Analysis
Height: 170cm ± 5cm
Bust: 97cm ± 2.9cm (37-38in)
Waist: 66cm ± 1.7cm (26-27in)
Hips: 96cm ± 2.8cm (37-38in)
Shoulder Width…
Felicia whistled low. 38D-26-38 in inches was the perfect hourglass figure. No wonder the skintight suit had created thousands of fans so quickly.
She still needed Gwen’s asurents for comparison, which ant she needed to call the one person who probably knew what color panties Gwen Stacy would be wearing today.
Her thumb hovered montarily over MJ’s contact. There was a mont of hesitation about whether using Gwen’s best friend was right or wrong.
‘Felicia, for god’s sake, you flirt with soone’s boyfriend and steal stuff. You shouldn’t worry about others’ opinions.’
She hit the dial, and the call was answered almost imdiately.
“Hello, who is this?”
“Hey, MJ. It’s Felicia. We t at swimming classes last year.”
“Oh—oh yeah! Felicia, right. The fastest with luscious platinum blonde.”
Felicia smiled. “The best of the best.”
“You had guys drooling over like crazy.” MJ chuckled. “What’s up? I’m in the cafeteria right now and it’s loud as hell here. God, that janitor’s losing his mind over a juice spill.”
“So just another day.” Felicia giggled. “MJ, actually, I need a favor. Kind of a weird one.”
“Okay...?” MJ’s voice took on a curious tone. “How can I help you?”
“I’m putting together a surprise for Gwen. A gift with a red dress, an accessory set, and so other stuff. It’s the whole package in a way. I need her asurents so everything fits.”
The call went so quiet that Felicia had to double check if she was still on line.
“Wait, for Gwen? Gwendolyn Stacy?”
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t know you guys were... I an, do you even talk?”
“Do you give gifts to people you don’t talk to?” Felicia laughed. “Of course we do. Are you jealous?”
“What? No, I’m not. I’m just surprised. Well, that’s really sweet actually. Gwen needs more friends. Like, she’s got and Harry, and that’s basically it since middle school. We keep telling her to put herself out there more, but she’s always so busy with school and that internship…”
Sothing about that left Felicia dumbstruck. Gwen Stacy was smart, pretty, and a superhero, yet she only had two friends. That was two more than Felicia from a week ago, but still!
“So can you help out?” Felicia asked. “I don’t want to ask her directly and ruin the surprise.”
“Oh yeah, totally. Hang on… I keep her size updated for her presents since she is so picky about fit. Let just... okay, found it. I’m texting it to you.”
“Thanks, sweetheart. I’ll get sothing for you too so you don’t feel lonely.”
“Shut up!” MJ chuckled. “Just keep being friends with Gwen.”
“Oh, I will.”
How could she not make “friends” with the hottest superhero on the news?
As the call ended, Felicia’s heart pounded with excitent. Just as her phone buzzed, she quickly looked at the asurents.
All seven perfect matches were in the margin of error. To be fair, a lot of won had the sa asurents as Ghost Spider. But Felicia was almost certain about her discovery that Gwen Stacy was Ghost Spider.
‘This is insane.’
Felicia locked her device with a grin. With this secret in hand, she was going to have a thrilling ti teasing Dante. To keep Gwen’s trust and cooperation, he would agree to any of her requests.
‘Death and Silver Sable can wait. It’s my ti now.’
As she was about to march back into Smokie’s, a limousine glided to a stop directly in front of her. Its black paint was so glossy it reflected the streetlights like a mirror, and its tinted windows concealed everything. Such a luxurious vehicle shouldn’t be stopping outside a diner in this neighborhood.
‘Is it here for Dante?’
The rear door opened right in front of her, and a middle-aged man stepped out. His broad figure was covered up by an expensive suit. White hair slicked back gave him a serious professional aura. He had rosy cheeks despite the winter chill.
Her phone nearly slipped from her fingers. She knew that face since it had motivated her to dip her toes in every field. Everything she’d been doing these past years was for him. His face should have been gaunt and wasted by now, yet he was, looking as if he had gone back to his younger days.
“Dad…”
Walter Hardy nodded, yet there was no sign of happiness on his face. “Hello, kitten.”
Felicia didn’t think to question his reaction and threw herself into his arms, and for the first ti in eight years, her father wasn’t in her mories. He was real.
“How…?” Her voice ca out trembling. So she just pressed her face against his shoulder and let her emotions settle. “How are you here? Did you et Mom? Dad, she’s been dying without you. She hasn’t been the sa ever since you left.”
“It’s a long story, Felicia,” he whispered in her ears, but sothing about it felt off. “We’ll talk later. Get in.”
“Okay.”
She cast one last look over her shoulder at Smokie’s. Through the window, Dante’s back and Gwen’s frustrated look were fully visible.
‘Have fun with your Ghost Spider.’
She slid into the passenger seat and frowned at the faint chemical sll lingering in the car.
‘Must be his dicine.’
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