Gwen Stacy's pursuit: I found my whole world

A white blur swept down with the cold late-autumn wind, striking at an angle that utterly defied physics.

Lynn did not dodge. Or rather, the instant his Spider-Sense sounded its highest-level alarm, he deliberately gave up resisting. He fell backward with the momentum, his back slamming hard against the terrace's cold marble floor.

Thud!

Amid the dull impact, their bodies rolled half a turn across the ground before coming to rest in the stone railing's shadow.

The air was instantly crushed from Lynn's chest, and he gave a muffled grunt. Gwen Stacy's movements were brutally rough, her legs locked around his waist, her knees pinning his hip bones, her hands clamped onto his shoulders like hydraulic pincers. That terrifying strength belonging to Ghost-Spider nearly crushed his shoulder blades.

The white mask of her suit receded like a tide, revealing a pale, gaunt face flushed an unhealthy red.

Gwen Stacy's disheveled blond hair fell across Lynn's cheeks, bringing a faintly cool touch. Her once-clear eyes were now webbed with bloodshot veins, a chilling madness and obsession flickering deep within her pupils.

"I found you..."

She gasped for breath, her warm breaths striking the side of Lynn's neck. This was not the joy of a long-awaited reunion. It was more like a lone wolf that had starved for months in the wilderness finally sinking its fangs into its prey's throat.

"You... liar."

A cold tear struck the tip of Lynn's nose.

Gwen Stacy's gaze shifted downward, fixing on the faint scar inside Lynn's wrist. It was the mark left when a fragment of Green Goblin's Pumpkin Bomb grazed him as he pushed her away atop the Clock Tower.

She abruptly released one hand, her fingertips stroking the scar almost convulsively. Her nails scratched red marks into Lynn's skin.

"Why did you cut it?" Gwen Stacy's voice was horribly hoarse, thick with a nasal rasp yet filled with teeth-gritting hatred. "What gave you the right to decide for me? What gave you the right to sever our bond all by yourself? Do you know... my whole world collapsed when I watched you fall!"

She grew increasingly agitated as she spoke. Her fingers suddenly tightened around Lynn's collar, forcibly hauling his upper body toward her. Their noses almost touched.

"I crossed the entire Multiverse and searched every timeline." Tears kept spilling from Gwen Stacy's eyes, yet her mouth twisted into a chilling smile. "I killed three dimensional trespassers who tried to stop me, crushing their bones inch by inch... just to find you."

She leaned down, her teeth gently catching Lynn's earlobe, her voice as low as if she were uttering some vicious curse. "This time, I'm never letting go. Even if we die, you have to die with me. You're my whole world, Lynn."

Lynn's Adam's apple bobbed.

He could clearly feel the destructive urge within Gwen Stacy on the verge of running out of control. This Ghost-Spider's reason was already teetering on the edge of collapse. If he dared utter a single refusal now, or showed any intention of escaping, she would absolutely wrap him in a cocoon of webbing and forcibly drag him back to her universe.

"Gwen..." Lynn slowed his breathing and raised his right hand with difficulty, slipping it through her tangled blond hair to gently cradle the back of her head.

His movements were slow, carrying the tenderness of someone soothing a bristling cat.

"I wasn't trying to leave you behind." Lynn looked straight into those bloodshot eyes, his voice carrying just the right hint of weakness and heartache. "Back then... the web couldn't hold both our weight. If I hadn't let go, we would've both died."

He paused, his thumb gently wiping the tears from the corner of Gwen Stacy's eye. "I had to let you live."

Those words struck Gwen Stacy's most vulnerable nerve like a precisely aimed hammer blow. Her whole body jolted, and the madness in her eyes instantly turned into boundless hurt. She whimpered, completely abandoning all her defenses, and buried her face firmly in the crook of Lynn's neck, greedily breathing in his scent.

"Don't ever lie to me again... don't..."

Lynn gently patted her back, but at that moment, his gaze turned utterly cold.

Because the Spider-Sense in his mind had already shifted from "high-frequency warning" to "countdown to destruction."

The marble floor against his back was cooling at an absurd rate. The cold wind around them stopped, and even the chirping of insects in the grass was completely erased. An extremely strong smell of ozone filled the air, mixed with a suffocating trace of blood.

Two meters away.

The five-centimeter-thick bulletproof glass door was making an exceedingly shrill scraping sound.

In the kitchen, just one wall away.

The sink had long since overflowed, and water ran along the marble countertop, dripping onto the floor.

Wanda stood before the sink, still holding half a shattered bone china plate. The sharp porcelain had sliced her palm, and blood ran between her fingers, but she stared fixedly toward the terrace as though she could feel no pain.

Her gaze passed effortlessly through the wall and glass.

Within her field of perception, a breach had been torn in the territory that belonged to her. A bug with no regard for its own life had not only intruded, but was even lying on top of her "whole world."

"Hydra treated you as a 'vessel' to control me..." A growl unlike anything human emerged from Wanda's throat. "S.H.I.E.L.D. treated you as a defected agent they could discard at any moment..."

"Only I... only I treated you as my one untouchable treasure!"

Scarlet Chaos Particles erupted from her like boiling magma. The kitchen's ceiling light instantly burst, its glass fragments suspended in midair. The beige wall paneling was stripped away by the raging energy, exposing the gray-white reinforced concrete beneath.

The "home" she had carefully arranged for Lynn was falling apart under the onslaught of jealousy and fury.

"Who allowed you... to touch him?"

Wanda slowly turned around. Her feet had already left the floor, her entire body hovering in midair. Her once-gentle eyes were now completely consumed by scarlet energy; even their whites had vanished.

A violent wind rose inside the kitchen, sweeping every knife, fork, and plate into the air and instantly grinding them to dust.

She advanced toward the bulletproof glass door, step by step. With each step closer, the oppressive force in the air multiplied.

On the terrace.

Lynn's hand abruptly stopped patting Gwen Stacy's back. He could feel that Gwen Stacy, pressed on top of him, had also sensed those world-destroying energy fluctuations.

Gwen Stacy jerked her head up, Ghost-Spider's instincts instantly tensing every muscle in her body. She turned toward the glass door. The obsession in her eyes did not retreat; instead, an exceedingly dangerous fighting spirit flared within them.

"It's that old woman..." Gwen Stacy gritted her teeth, and the web-shooters on her wrists gave a crisp mechanical click.

"Gwen, don't move!" Lynn lowered his voice, trying to force her back into his arms.

Too late.

Crack-

Without warning, a spiderweb-like crack appeared at the very center of the bulletproof glass.

Then.

Boom!

The entire bulletproof glass door, weighing hundreds of pounds, along with the stone doorframes on either side, was blasted into a skyful of dust by a scarlet tsunami.

The raging shock wave swept across the entire terrace, uprooting the ground lights on the lawn.

Amid the flying stone chips and powdered glass, Wanda hovered slowly in midair like a world-destroying deity returned from hell. Scarlet Chaos Magic writhed wildly around her like countless venomous snakes.

She looked down from above at the two figures lying atop each other, her scarlet eyes locked on Gwen Stacy's hands gripping Lynn's shoulders.

At that moment, the air froze completely.

Wanda slowly raised her right hand, spreading her fingers slightly. Scarlet light capable of annihilating matter danced at her fingertips. Her voice was cold enough to freeze even a soul:

"Take your filthy hands off him."

"Or I'll crush you and your universe together."