Snake Eyes

"Hi, Gwen!" Liz Allan greeted Gwen Stacy on the Empire State University campus that morning. Running to catch up with her friend, Liz was surprised to see how pale Gwen was, and how she couldn't seem to look at her. She tried to walk away, before Liz caught her.

"…What's the matter?" Liz asked Gwen, a concerned look on her face.

"I…" Gwen began, before she fell silent.

"Are you alright?" Liz persisted.

"I blew it," Gwen said, shame creeping into her voice. "I totally blew it."

SPIDER-WOMAN #10

"SNAKE EYES"

"What do you mean?" Liz asked, leading her into the Student's Union Building, where they sat down on one of the couches set aside for students.

It took Gwen several seconds to compose herself, before she finally spoke again, her voice trembling.

"I tried talking to Harry, and then…I don't know, everything just went out of control! We started screaming at each other, then I just about lost it. I was about to…to…" she couldn't finish.

Liz frowned, as Gwen fell silent.

"So what happened after that?" she asked gently.

"I just ran," Gwen said ashamedly. "I…I'm so sorry, Liz," she continued. "I tried to help, I did really, but-"

"I know you tried," Liz reassured her. "I'll try talking to him again myself-maybe he'll open up some more to me if I try again. What about you, though?"

Shame turned to confusion on Gwen's face.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"You seem like you're really under a lot of stress," Liz replied. "Are classes getting to be too much, or is it-"

"No, it's my parents," Gwen muttered. "They're going through a really ugly divorce right now. It's driving me crazy."

"You're upset that they're splitting up?" Liz asked.

"God, no!" Gwen shot back, rather more harshly than she intended. "It's just that we really need my dad's money, and if my mom divorces him, chances are he'll cut us off altogether. I can't stand it, but what am I supposed to do?"

"Your mom's staying with your Aunt Nancy, right?" Liz asked.

"Yeah," Gwen sighed, "and chances are I'll have to move in with them or something if Dad cuts us off, since I won't be able to afford it otherwise. I've been trying to find some more acting and modeling jobs, but I've just had a terrible time finding work lately! The only thing I've been able to find recently is that student film of Randy Robertson's, and that was only because Kitty referred him to me," she concluded in frustration.

"So you're worried about the money?" Liz noted.

"Yeah…" Gwen replied, leaning back against the couch. "The sooner this goes through, the better it'll be more Mom, but then you know Dad is going to screw us over, and we'll have to find some other source of money-it's not fair to Aunt Nancy to support all four of us if I have to move back there. And Mom can't get a job right now," she continued, answering Liz's unspoken question, "since she still needs some time to get her head together."

"Tell you what, Gwen," Liz said gently, putting a hand on her shoulder. "I know you're worried about me and Harry, but you have to take care of yourself first. I'll look after Harry-but please, before anything else, look after your mother. She's what's most important right now."

Gwen smiled sadly.

"Thanks, Liz."

"No problem," Liz reassured her. "And don't worry about finding a job-this is New York! With your looks and your talent, you'll have them beating down your door! Just give it time."

"What's your problem this morning?" Norman Osborn asked George Stacy as the grey-haired man stormed into his office.

"Don't fucking start with me, Norman," George warned his partner as he sat down and opened his briefcase. "Now, Senator Finster responded to my email and told me-"

"Problems with the wife? The daughter, maybe?" Norman asked without looking up.

"I threw those cunts out months ago," George replied dismissively. "As I was saying-"

"Oh, I get it," Norman continued as he finally looked up from his laptop. "How much alimony are they asking for?"

"Goddammit Norman, I told you not to start with me!" George finally shouted, his eyes flaring in a rage as he grabbed the edge of Norman's desk. Taking a deep breath, George sat down again, as Norman's smile vanished and he leaned back in his chair, raising an eyebrow.

"Perhaps we should meet sometime later this week," Norman noted, "when you are more in control of your emotions."

"I can handle it, Norman," George shot back, as he forced himself to calm down. "Now then, as for other business…"

"I understand that the Will O' the Wisp failed the mission you had hired him for, didn't he?" Norman asked.

"The pompous idiot was attacked by Spider-Woman and got himself arrested," George said, as he shuffled through the papers in his briefcase and raised an eyebrow at what he saw.

Now it was Norman Osborn's turn to flush red with anger.

"Something the matter, Norman?" George asked, as he raised an eyebrow.

"Nothing," Norman said brusquely, although George could see a dangerous gleam in his eyes. "Is there much else we can do about the investors visiting the Roxxon plant now?"

"I'm afraid not," George replied, "but I did revoke the Wisp's down payment, so it hasn't cost us anything. Our biggest problem right now would be running the risk of getting caught in the crossfire between Crimewave and Phillippe Bazin, and-"

"No, our biggest problem is that muckracking Ben Urich," Norman cut in, his knuckles white as he clenched his fists in anger. "If he ties us in to that tainted water scandal in Nyack, the EPA is going to be all over us," he continued, referring to the Daily Bugle's investigations of a sudden outbreak of violent illness in the city of Nyack in New York State, which were alleged to have been caused by Oscorp's illegal chemical dumping and polluting the city aquifers.

"So what do we do?" George asked.

"We call the Constrictor," Norman said matter-of-factly.

"The Constrictor?" George balked. "Killing Ben Urich will-"

"We're not going after Ben Urich," Norman assured him. "We're going to arrange for his nephew Phil to have an 'accident'," he said calmly.

"As a warning, then?" George asked, and Norman nodded. "And what happens if some costumed hero gets in the way?"

"What happens if they do?" Norman replied, contempt in his voice. "Why do you think I want to draft the Constrictor for this job?"

Even if he had been occasionally defeated by the likes of Spider-Man and Captain America, the Constrictor still enjoyed a strong reputation in the superhuman mercenary community for his consummate loyalty to his employers and the fact that he had always kept his mouth shut on the rare occasions whenever he had been captured, never giving away any information about his employers or why he had done the jobs he was contracted for.

"No matter what happens, there won't be anything to tie it back to us," George smiled.

Another long evening of filming for Randy Robertson's documentary after the day's classes provided Gwen with a welcome distraction from her worries with Liz and Harry. Losing herself in the dance, she was always able to leave her problems behind, if only for a little while.

As Gwen moved to join several of the other dancers who were sitting down to take a break after they had wrapped filming for the night, she saw Randy Robertson moving towards her, a wide smile on his face. Breaking off from the rest of the group, she moved to join him as they sat down together.

"I swear, Gwen, you're a lifesaver," Randy told her before she had a chance to say anything. "The video's going to be a hit-I was thinking of putting it on YouTube after I handed it in. If you hadn't stepped in when that other girl broke her foot, I don't know what I would have done."

"Glad I could help," Gwen nodded.

"Did you try for that A Streetcar Named Desire production I told you about?" Randy asked her.

"The production's been postponed," Gwen shook her head. "The company is having financial problems, so they won't be having auditions until the middle of February. Just my luck," she sighed in frustration.

"Well, I don't know if this is something you'd really be interested in, but I heard from a friend of mine that Kingsley Cosmetics is looking for some models to promote this new makeup line they're releasing next month," Randy said.

"Kingsley Cosmetics?" Gwen asked. "As in Roderick Kingsley? Wasn't he-"

"-mixed up in that whole lawsuit a couple of years ago that said he stole a lot of research from some of his competitors?" Randy asked. "Yeah, but that whole thing was dismissed, I think."

"At this point, I don't have much else going for me," Gwen said glumly. "I guess I might as well try out-what have I got to lose, right?"

"They're holding auditions at Bloomingdale's this weekend," Randy told her. "I have to go down there to pick up some things-you want to come with me? We could probably grab some dinner and a movie afterwards, if you like."

Gwen blinked at him in surprise.

"Are you…asking me out?" she asked Randy.

"Sure sounds like it," Randy grinned back at her. "So what do you say?"

"I…uh…" she trailed off for several seconds.

Randy looked at her curiously.

"I can't," she shook her head. "I have…too much homework that night," she finally finished. "I mean, I'd like to, but-"

"Are you alright?" Randy asked her.

"Of course I am!" she snapped at him, as she stood up to leave, before she softened again. "Look, I have to go now. I appreciate the offer, but-"

"Are you sure about this, Gwen?" Randy asked, grabbing her arm.

She hesitated again.

"…Yeah," she said unconvincingly, as she pulled herself free and forced herself to walk to the auditorium door.

Randy's concerned gaze followed her out.

Gwen sat at her computer the next night after classes, having completed her homework for the evening. She had opened her university e-mail account, and had entered Marie-Ange Colbert's school email address…but that was as far as she got. When Gwen had rescued Liz and the rest of the people kidnapped by the bizarre tarot-card monsters some weeks before, she had initially suspected Marie-Ange as being behind it all, given that the people that had been kidnapped had all crossed paths with Marie-Ange at some point or another.

Now, however, Gwen was plagued with guilt, wondering if she had made a mistake. Marie-Ange no longer attended classes, and nothing about her had appeared on the news. If she had been arrested or charged, something would have appeared on the news…but there was nothing at all. What might have happened to Marie-Ange, if Gwen had inadvertently accused her of a crime she didn't commit?

So far, Gwen had held off on contacting the police-what would they think if this girl was suddenly asking about Marie-Ange for no reason?-and otherwise wasn't sure what else she could do without running the risk of appearing too interested or exposing herself somehow.

Then she thought of attempting to email Marie-Ange.

Dear Marie-Ange:

It's Gwen, from Drama. We haven't seen you in class in a while, and we're just wondering how you're doing. Are you OK? Is there some way we could help? We're just worried, and we'd like to know if you're alright.

Yours,

Gwen

Gwen was about to hit the SEND icon when she froze.

She suddenly remembered her ugly meeting with Harry just three days before, and how she had almost attacked him.

She deleted the e-mail without sending it.

The next day, Gwen exited her History class and prepared to head home, only to run into her friend Julia Winhill. Majoring in Journalism and minoring in Political Science, Julia's long black hair and pale heart-shaped face might have made her seem more suitable for dance or drama than political debate, but her keen intellect and strong, clear speaking voice belied her appearance. Part of a group of students from Albany who had come to ESU together, Gwen had always found Julia an engaging person to talk to, mostly because of how she was certain Julia's opinions would have outraged George Stacy, had he ever heard them.

"Hey Gwen," Julia greeted her with a smile. "I heard about that video you're doing for Randy Robertson in his Film class. It's so nice you agreed to help him out."

"It's no big deal," Gwen shrugged as they made their way off campus. "It was Kitty Pryde's idea, actually-she just thought I might know someone who could fill in, and I decided to do it myself. It's not a problem, really."

"Yes it is," Julia insisted, "because not nearly enough people know about everything African Americans…" she trailed off for a moment.

"Sorry about that," she continued with an embarrassed smile. "I have a tendency to go too far with these things."

"Don't worry about it," Gwen nodded. "What brings you out this way, anyway? I thought you lived in the other direction, with those other guys from Albany. What are their names? Rick and Melissa?"

"Alyssa," Julia corrected her. "And I'm just on my way to see my friend Phil. He and I are involved in a lot of different political stuff, and we're just meeting at his uncle's townhouse to discuss some things."

"That's just three blocks from where I live," Gwen noted after Julia had given her the location. "I'm on my way home now anyway. You want to get some coffee or something on the way?"

"Is it fair trade?" Julia asked, before shaking her head at Gwen's blank look. "Never mind, it's alright. I'll just get something at Phil's place."

The townhouse of Ben Urich, longstanding crime reporter for the Daily Bugle, was relatively modest considering the neighborhood it was in, having been one of the first ones built before the values of the surrounding property had risen and been purchased by higher-income residents. Unkempt and otherwise undecorated, Ben Urich's home was a mirror of its owner's personality, going about in its own way and hardly caring what others thought of its rumpled appearance.

At Julia's invitation, Gwen somewhat reluctantly followed her in, looking around in surprise at the mess of books, papers and file folders that cluttered the entire inside of the first floor. She saw news clippings, typed and handwritten correspondence, scribbled notes in binders, and any number of Post-Its, all dealing with some sort of crime issues that otherwise made little sense but left Gwen wondering if Ben Urich was a crime reporter or an obsessive-compulsive packrat.

The sound of someone coming down the stairs turned Gwen around, until she saw a thin blonde man with scruffy hair and glasses, dressed in a blue sweater and jeans, come down to greet her and Julia. As Julia brought him over to introduce them, Gwen couldn't help but notice just how wide Phil's smile got when he got a good look at her. Not that Gwen really minded-after almost six years of going to school with teenage males, she had gotten used to it…more or less, at any rate.

"Nice to meet you," Phil bowed to her. "You stopping in, or just-"

"No, I was just on my way home," Gwen shook her head.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea," Phil laughed.

"What do you mean?" Gwen asked in surprise.

"Phil's just talking about that one supervillain who went after me a couple of times," Julia sighed, clearly not wanting to talk about this. "This psychopath named Lightmaster, who developed a grudge against me because I exposed his academic plagiarism. Look, Phil, can we not-"

"Sorry Julia," Phil nodded. "You take care, alright Gwen?" he nodded as she moved to leave.

Even as Gwen did, however, Julia's words sounded in her head, and she took care to mark them both with her special tracing pheromones, just in case.

Gwen's intuition paid off much sooner than she expected, however, as her spider-senses began prickling that night as she was returning home after an uneventful night of webswinging to try and clear her head. Following its pull, she was surprised to find herself heading towards Ben Urich's house, which seemed just as quiet and dark as the rest of the block.

Even then, her spider-senses, which seemed to react whenever someone Spider-Woman had marked with them was in peril or otherwise in a situation she would be interested in, insistently led her to land silently in Urich's front yard and walk up to the door, which to her surprise was unlocked. Making her way in, Spider-Woman was doubly amazed to find that Urich's alarm system was entirely silent, not even reacting to her presence the way it had when she and Julia had come in earlier that day.

Now convinced something was wrong, Spider-Woman looked around in alarm and saw a single light on coming from a room on the upper landing. Silently making her way up the wall and over the railing, she peered into the room and was astonished at what she saw.

Phil Urich, clad in pajamas, lay on the floor next to his rumpled bed gritting his teeth in agony, wrapped in what appeared to be a series of steel cables that connected to the gauntlets of a tall man in a costume of dark midnight blue with a gold band that began in the middle of his mask and down the front of his body. Similar patterns began on his shoulders and continued down his arms, reminding Spider-Woman of a serpentine pattern. Electrical currents coursed up and down the cables, causing Phil to writhe and apparently scream, although no sound came from his mouth.

"What the hell are you doing?" Spider-Woman demanded furiously as the costumed man turned around in surprise, while she attempted to blast him with her electrical stings. Scowling at her, the man somehow recalled the cables, which coiled off of Phil's body like snakes, before they came up in front of the man in a protective screen, easily absorbing the energy of her attack.

"I take it you're new at the game," the blue and gold-garbed man said calmly to Spider-Woman, before the cables suddenly lashed out and entangled her with blinding speed. "My professional name, so to speak, is the Constrictor. I trust I live up to my name?" he asked ironically, as the coils suddenly sparked to life with electrical energy, shocking Spider-Woman and causing her to scream in pain, before falling silent as another coil wrapped around her throat.

"Silent but deadly," the Constrictor explained to Spider-Woman as she struggled to free herself. "Vibranium can silence a victim's cries, and can deflect energy attacks. I should also add that, if engineered properly, it can conduct electricity very well."

Her head swimming, Spider-Woman did the only things she could think of and sprang back, her powerful leg muscles taking her back out onto the landing and over the railing, dragging the Constrictor out with her. Spinning a web to catch herself on the landing before she crashed to the ground, Spider-Woman was astonished to feel the coils sliding off her even as the Constrictor expertly twisted through the air and landed on his feet in the parlor of the Urich residence, instead of crashing to the floor like she expected.

The coils snaked out at her again as she came down to join the Constrictor, crackling with electricity as she dodged quickly, spreading her webbing in a wide defensive arc as she tried to entangle the snakelike appendages. For every one she entangled, however, another one snapped free, even as they threatened to surround her. Spider-Woman managed to leap out of the closing circle, but then the coils gathered into a large spiked ball that smashed her in midair, causing her to fall awkwardly and land heavily on the ground.

As she struggled to get to her feet, Spider-Woman felt some of the coils wrap around her again and slam her heavily against the wall, even as she saw another set of coils slide up the wall next to her. Hearing a struggle and a scream, Spider-Woman saw Phil Urich dragged down next to her, similarly caught and entangled, before the Constrictor advanced on them, giving them another low-level shock to keep them from struggling.

The Constrictor turned on the lights to get a better look at his victims, and he raised his eyebrows as he got a good look at Spider-Woman for the first time.

"So young," he mused, as he jolted Spider-Woman again. "Are you even out of high school, child?"

"What…why…why are you asking?" Spider-Woman slurred at him, still woozy from being slammed into the wall and from the shocks he had given her.

"Because I am curious to know just how long you have been operating as a costumed heroine, my dear," the Constrictor informed her. "I do not pretend to know what motivates you to engage in such a perilous activity, nor would I care to. But from your actions here tonight, it is clear that you are rather more inexperienced than the likes of Spider-Man, Daredevil or Captain America, all of whom I have battled over the course of my career."

"To that end, I would warn you of the perils of your chosen path as a costumed adventurer. I wonder whether, in your youth and inexperience, you had considered these possibilities when you first donned your costume, and just how dangerous our chosen profession can be."

The coils pinning Phil Urich suddenly came to life, wrapping around his head and neck as Spider-Woman frantically struggled to free herself, only to be shocked once again. She could only watch in horror as the coils rapidly turned Phil's head almost completely around, breaking his neck with a sickening crunch.

"My motivation for dressing the way I do is money," the Constrictor continued flatly as he recalled his coils, freeing Spider-Woman and Phil's lifeless body, which both slumped to the floor. "It's why I use these electrical coils, and why I use the devices that disabled Ben Urich's burglar alarms and unlocked his front door. My advice to you, young one," he told her as she crawled over to Phil's body and helplessly tried to revive him, tears in her eyes, "would be to consider precisely why you wear your costume, and what you hope to accomplish by wearing it. As I have shown you, this life is far more dangerous and far less glamorous than you have presumably imagined," he finished, making his way out the door as Spider-Woman sat down next to Phil Urich's corpse, her head in her hands.

She vaguely remembered phoning the police and making up some brief statement about how she had seen the Constrictor enter the house on her nightly patrols, and suspected he was up to no good, before she had swung off into the night, taking a long, circuitous route around the city before returning to her apartment several hours later.

She stumbled into the bathroom still in her costume, tearing off her mask before pausing to look at her various bruises, contusions and electrical burns. She then stared blankly into the mirror for several minutes, before she vomited into the sink, ambled into her bedroom and collapsed on the bed without changing out of her uniform.

It was anyone's guess if it could be called sleep, as Gwen's mind whirled with images of her mother sitting huddled and alone on the couch, her father's angry shouting, her enraged beating of the Brothers Grimm and Polestar, her dousing Firebrand's flames with her webbing and pulling people from burning buildings, her conversation with the nurse after rescuing that one woman from the electrical fire, her nearly attacking Harry, Liz's smiling face…

She spent most of the next day in a daze as her wounds healed, not going to classes or answering her phone, or looking at the headline in the Daily Bugle that noted Phil Urich's murder.

The idea of facing Julia made Gwen want to run back and vomit in the sink again.

(Next Issue: Gwen once again finds herself questioning her role as Spider-Woman as she tries to cope with the murder of Phil Urich. Even as she does so, she becomes confronted with her father's response to Helen Stacy's's divorce filing and tries out for the Kingsley Cosmetics audition, seeking more money to help her family. But how will she handle dealing with the infamous Roderick Kingsley? All this and more in Spider-Woman #11: Breaking Up Is Hard To Do!)