Prom was an event most high schoolers looked forward to, a rite of passage, a reason to get dressed up and have fun with friends at the bare minimum. It was usually a night that included ill advised underage drinking, sexual encounters, and awkward chaperones standing around wishing they'd found something better to do with their Saturday night. Anyone who'd seen a high school based movie or tv show knew what Prom was about. A high school dance with an odd amount of weight put on it, right down to crowning a king and queen.

For Gwen, Prom was one of the worst nights of her life.

It had been good at the start. It had all the markers of a successful night. MURDER FACE, the band she was in with her friends, was supposed to be playing so everyone could dance until the sun came up. She wasn't exactly wearing a fancy dress but being on stage, rocking it with her girls, that was the best way she could think of spending Prom. It was supposed to be a night to remember. And okay, in the end it still was. Gwen had hoped it would be for a good reason, memories she wanted to remember. But of course that wasn't the case.

Her outfit traded for her Spider-Woman suit, hair crushed inside her mask, makeup smudged from the same, what was supposed to be a great, fun night of performing with her friends changed in an instant to just another night of her life. It wasn't like anyone else got to have the night they'd expected either, not when a giant lizard crashed the place and sent the whole party into chaos. Gwen didn't hesitate to run toward the chaos while everyone else fled, like a salmon trying to swim upstream — then swinging above the fray on some webs.

But she'd been there before.

A night to remember. Gwen could never forget. How could she? The screams, the eruption of chaos, the look in her friends' eyes as they panicked and ran. She was right behind them, that's the lie she told to get them toward safety and stay back to take care of business. That was a horrible way to think about what happened. Business. It was a pit in her stomach, feeling deeper and worse by the second as she threw herself toward the danger. It was her heart hammering fast, pounding against her ribcage as her heartbeat echoed in her ears above the sound system still blaring out some Top 40s.

This was how it went. The giant lizard crashed Prom, put innocent (and some not so innocent, teenagers weren't perfect) lives in danger. Most fled, but not everyone could. Gwen swung into action to protect everyone she could from the giant lizard, which meant it was a rumble in the concrete jungle between a spider and a lizard. Gwen won, because that's what heroes do, but mostly she lost — because the giant lizard was Peter, her neighbor and friend. Peter, who was trying to get revenge on the knuckleheads who were constantly bullying him, who was trying to make himself more like her when he did an experiment on himself and turned into that giant lizard.

Peter, who died that night after she'd fought so hard against him, not knowing it was her friend behind the scales. He showed his true face one last time before he was gone, just enough to let Gwen see who it was she'd gone up against and who was responsible for destroying.

But she'd been there before.

It had been years since it happened, but she was there again.

One.
Pounding on the bathroom door, the first of it making Gwen jolt as she held onto the edge of the sink, gripping it tightly. "Gwen, hurry up, we're about to go on!"

"Alright Em Jay, chill." Gwen drew in a breath, staring at her reflection in the mirror. It felt like a dream, some kind of deja vu, except she knew she wasn't dreaming. Everything was real, it was happening. Again. Maybe it would be different this time.

But it wasn't, that much was clear by the screams she heard as she left the bathroom to join the rest of the band. Her heart rate jumped and she reached for her friends without looking, grabbing onto a couple of them and shoving away from where she knew the action was. "Go, I'm right behind you." The same words, same lie, same result — them disappearing into the rush of the crowd and Gwen changing into her suit, swinging on webs above the chaos to get to where she needed to be.

Her heart caught in her throat when she saw him, like the worst kind of blast from the past, that giant lizard she knew was actually her friend. And she had to stop him before he hurt someone. At least this time she knew who she was fighting, could pull her punches unlike the first time - when he'd been asking her to and she hadn't listened.

"Peter, come on, this isn't you!" Swing and a miss, which was exactly what Peter did too — swung and missed as Gwen ducked his punch. She could feel the adrenaline, his frustration at the night not going to plan. Well, hers hadn't either. No one there was having the night they'd expected, and he was the reason why.

She webbed up his hands, keeping him from lashing out anymore, shot a line of web at his ankles to bind his feet together, made him immobile. Maybe if she just talked to him until the serum wore off, tried to calm him down, maybe that would work—

It happened like slow motion in front of her, Peter trying to rip his way out of the webbing and tilting off balance, toppling over and falling to the ground, the sickening crack of his head hitting the floor. Gwen wasn't fast enough to catch him, tried to use her web-shooter but it jammed, she couldn't do anything to stop it. She was by his side a second too late, hands immediately moving to his head, touching it gingerly as she felt bile rise in her throat, a deep pit in her stomach.

"No no no, Peter, please." It was too late, Gwen knew that. The serum started to wear off, turn the lizard back into the familiar form of her friend, and once again she found herself kneeling next to his lifeless form. She knew she only had seconds until she had to run, but she took every one of them to hold onto him as long as she could.

Two.
It was happening again, she knew it as soon as she woke up to the exact same whistling tune coming from her dad in the kitchen. Not that whistling was uncommon, but it was the exact same, his greeting too, what he'd made for breakfast. It felt even more like a waking dream than it had before, the repeated starts of conversations. Gwen wasn't sure she could take it happening again. Each bite she ate had to be forced down and she wasn't tasting any of it, more like eating out of habit and expectation.

"Have fun tonight, Gwen. Knock em dead!" She could only stare at his retreating figure as he headed off to work, his choice of words hitting her like a ton of bricks. It couldn't happen the same way again, she couldn't do it. Losing Peter once had been bad enough, twice was tearing her apart inside, there couldn't be a third.

A plan. That's what she'd been missing each time before. If she knew what was going to happen, where and when, she could plan for it and use that to her advantage. She had all day to come up with a way to save Peter and everyone else, and there had to be a way. She was smart, she could do this. She could find a way to save everyone.

But what was that saying about the best laid plans? They often go awry.

Plan: Intercept Peter outside the school, before he crashed through the building.
Actual: Gwen got smashed into the building as Peter knocked his way through it.
Outcome: Failure.

Plan: Keep Peter occupied dealing with her to avoid innocent bystanders.
Actual: Peter's rage was far more focused on his lifelong bullies than her.
Outcome: Failure.

Plan: Knock Peter unconscious and guide him carefully to the floor.
Actual: Something, likely the serum, kept him from getting knocked out no matter how hard she tried, while still pulling her punches.
Outcome: Failure.

Plan: Keep Peter alive.
Outcome: Failure.

Three.
Maybe her knock at the door had been aggressive, but Gwen was exhausted and emotionally drained so it couldn't be helped. The look on May Parker's face as she peeked out told Gwen she'd definitely knocked too much, since the woman seemed to be expecting the police, or someone looking for shelter from zombies. Given the choice, she avoided their neighbors as much as she could. Difficult, considering the whole neighbors thing, but there she was, intentionally going for it.

"Hi May, is Peter home?" There was desperation in her voice, Gwen could hear it and hated it but she was desperate. If she couldn't get through to Peter as a lizard, she might be able to get through to Peter as her friend. If she could stop him from taking the serum in the first place, the crisis would be completely averted. Right?

"Oh no honey, I'm sorry but he's not. I can tell him you stopped by? Have you tried his cell?"

Gwen had tried his cell, both texting and calling, but to no avail. That was why she'd resorted to banging on her neighbor's door even though she could barely manage to meet May or Ben Parker's eyes on an average day, definitely not one where she'd failed to save Peter the past two nights in a row. "Yeah, thanks May, if you could let him know?. I'll keep an eye out otherwise."

By keep an eye out she meant climbing up the side of the house, sneaking in the window to Peter's room and looking around as quietly as she could. There were floorboards that creaked that she knew to avoid, tiptoeing as she snooped. It felt wrong, an invasion of privacy, but it also felt necessary. If she found something, if she found the serum maybe, she could keep it from happening at all. The more she looked, the longer she was there without finding anything, the more frustrated she grew.

Sinking down to sit on the edge of the bed, Gwen buried her face in her hands and let out a shaky breath. "God, Peter, just let me help you," she whispered, bringing her arms to wrap around herself as she tilted to the side, curling up on the bed and watching the door through tear-blurred eyes. She could wait there, wait until Peter came home, talk to him, stop it all from happening. All she had to do was wait for him to come home.

She fell asleep before that happened.

Four.
"What do you mean you're not coming?!" Gwen held her phone away from her ear, as though that would stop Em Jay from reaching through it and physically smacking her across the face. Honestly, she was surprised the other girl hadn't teleported to her room, powered by sheer rage.

"I can't play tonight, I'm sorry."

"Gwen, this is senior prom and MURDER FACE is playing, we need our drummer and that's you! Are you in the hospital? Did you break an arm? These are the only acceptable reasons to bail and even then there are ways around it. Ask them to discharge you. They could give you a shot of cortisone or whatever and you could power through."

"Em Jay, I just, Ican't." Gwen ran her hand over her face, biting at the inside of her lip and wishing, for once, that she didn't have such tenacious friends. Her stomach turned at the thought of stepping foot inside the school, being anywhere near where it all was going to happen. It was cowardly, she knew that. Her not going meant people would be hurt, which she also knew. It was a no win scenario. Go, fight Peter, history showed it would end badly. Don't go, Peter attacks, an unknown amount of people could be injured or killed. Not going was worse, but she didn't want to go. It didn't feel like she could. "I can't."

"Whatever these performance jitters are, pull yourself together and get over it. I'll be there in twenty and we'll get ready together."

That made it worse, but there was no stopping her. Em Jay would show up in twenty minutes or less, push her way in even if Gwen tried to keep her out, and make sure they were at the school on time (or early) for sound check. They were admirable qualities when used on someone else, but Gwen hated it when they were aimed her way. So they got ready, Em Jay filling the quiet with talking through every detail about the night ahead, not seeming to notice Gwen's lack of input. They got there for sound check, Gwen's stomach in knots and her throat tight as she swallowed back her emotions. The dance started, filled up, got into full swing, they were about to go on and like clockwork, the screaming began.

"Peter, I'm not going to fight you!" She was barely dodging his hits, not trying to fight back at all because that always ended in death, no matter how much she tried to prevent it. "Please, just stop!"

His tail whipped around, knocking the wind out of her and throwing her back into the wall. This time it was her head that made that sickening crack, and everything went dark.

Five.
It went straight to voicemail. Again.

They weren't talk on the phone friends but desperate times, desperate measures, etc. Gwen had already left a few — short, to the point, "call me back" — but they hadn't sparked any response. Neither had her texts, sitting there in their little speech bubbles where she had no idea if they'd been seen or not.

"Peter, I don't know if you're checking these or not but..." Chewing at the inside of her lip, she sighed. "I know what you're planning to do tonight, okay? I know, don't ask me how, and I'm scared for you. I'm scared something really bad is going to happen. Please don't do it, okay? Let's hang out instead, you and me, maybe we can get Harry to come too and we can put together some last minute D&D action. The band doesn't need me, they'll be fine, all I want is for you to be okay and what you're thinking of doing... it's not going to work. It's not, believe me. Please don't, not when we're so close to graduation and you'll never have to see these idiots again, it's not worth it. Call me back, okay? Let me know about D&D. Call me, please."

It never rang.

---

There was no whistling, that's what Gwen noticed first. No whistling from her dad, no scent of coffee wafting into her room, no sound of him puttering around as he got ready for work. The bed wasn't the same, different sheets and firmness of pillow. Even with all those clues, even with how she could feel it in her bones she wasn't back to the worst day of her life again, she was afraid to open her eyes. Could she trust herself, her sense? Could she trust anything?

What if it was a trick? Lull her into a false sense of security by throwing her into a different environment, but the day was the same? The last thing she remembered was holding Peter's lifeless body in her arms. Again. How many nights in a row had she failed him? She lost count, didn't want to add them up anyway because however many it was, it was far too many. Even once was bad enough. It could be a trick, it could be a trap. After all, she didn't know how it happened in the first place.

Forcing herself to open her eyes, she was greeted by the not completely unfamiliar sight of Gigi's room. She'd been there before. It was more put together than it had been the month before, no more moving boxes, everything in a deliberate place. The brightness of the decor, and the fact that she wasn't in her own room, destined to fail at saving her friend once again, was like a balm. There was a brief flash of guilt over the plants she'd ruined by throwing them at Peter the last time, considering how many there were carefully housed around the room.

Peter. Peter was there, a Peter at least. It didn't matter he wasn't hers, it didn't matter what dimension or universe, they were there to look out for each other. That was what they did, all across the multiverse. Peter was there, his room was at the end of the hall, and as soon as she managed to get out of bed she would hug the snot out of him. The comfort of knowing she wasn't in New York, it wasn't Prom, she wasn't working on a deadline to try and save him from himself, her, whatever the case — Gwen could cry at the relief. And she did, actually, tears slipping out the corners of her eyes where she was quick to brush them away.

God, she was exhausted — physically, mentally, emotionally. Being awake was not what she wanted to be, and now she knew she wasn't still trapped in whatever time anomaly she'd been in before, she might give herself the chance to sleep. She was so tired, so worn down, she was—

Hungry.

Not alone.