Poor Misfortunate Souls

Over the last few weeks, Gwen Stacy had been spending far more time in hospitals than she would have liked. Gwen's cousin Jill Stacy had been hospitalized after a subway crash caused by Gwen's old enemy Will O' the Wisp, who she'd repeatedly fought as the spectacular Spider-Woman. As Spider-Woman, Gwen had also protected her friends Harry Osborn and Liz Allan from the attempts of the revenge-crazed villains the Squid and Ms. Fortune to kill them. Unfortunately, her boyfriend Randy Robertson had been injured in the crossfire. Now, the Squid and Ms. Fortune had begun targeting Harry's and Liz's friends, brutally assaulting Bruce 'Kong' McFarlane.

As Spider-Woman, Gwen had been the one to find Kong. She had called the paramedics with Kong's phone, getting him to a hospital in time to save his life. Unfortunately, Kong was now in a coma, and the doctors couldn't say when he might come out of it.

Along with all that, Kong's boyfriend Kitty Pryde was an emotional wreck. Although she was a mutant with phasing powers that allowed her to pass through solid objects, Kitty had fled when Spider-Woman fought the Squid and Ms. Fortune. Kitty's guilt made her an emotional wreck, and Gwen wondered if she'd have yet another friend in the hospital.

Gwen felt sympathy for her friends' suffering, and she hoped they'd recover. More than that, though, she was seething with rage at the Squid and Ms. Fortune for what they had done. She had been guarding Harry and Liz as best she could as Spider-Woman, but she arrived too late to save Kong.

Now, walking through the hallways of the hospital on her way to meet Randy for his release from the hospital, Gwen struggled to keep her anger under control.

It's easy to pick on someone with no superpowers, isn't it? Gwen thought to herself.

Why don't they try picking another fight with me?

ULTIMATE SPIDER-WOMAN #94

POOR MISFORTUNATE SOULS

Gwen caught sight of Randy as she approached his hospital room. He was still a little pale, but Gwen was relieved to see the fire in his eyes she loved so much. Those eyes lit up even more as Randy caught sight of Gwen. She rushed towards him, and he embraced her in a tight hug.

"I'm so glad you're all right," Gwen said once Randy had released her.

"Not as glad as I am," Randy said with a smile. "How are Harry and Liz?"

"As well as they can be right now," Gwen said. "No signs of the Squid or Ms. Fortune, though," she continued, as she and Randy began walking down the hallway. "The only one of us that they went after was…" she trailed off.

"Yeah, I know," Randy said, his good mood gone in an instant. "And you didn't mark them with those tracking pheromones of yours, did you?"

"I'm afraid not," Gwen said, shaking her head guiltily.

"Don't blame yourself," Randy said, as they approached Kong's hospital room. "You-" he suddenly stopped speaking as he saw the young woman approaching Kong's room from the other direction. The young woman had long brown hair and bright matching eyes, with fair skin that contrasted oddly with her hair and eyes. Gwen knew that the young woman's skin was paler than usual, given the emotional pain she was carrying.

Kitty Pryde froze at the sight of Randy and Gwen. She opened her mouth to speak, but Randy beat her to it.

"You've got a lot of nerve showing your face here," Randy said, clenching his fists as he stormed towards Kitty. "What the hell do you-"

Before he could say anything else, Gwen stepped between him and Kitty.

"Not here, not now," Gwen said, grabbing Randy's arm and pulling him away. "Let's go."

"But, Gwen-" Randy said, unable to break free of Gwen's super-strength grip.

"We're not discussing this," Gwen said, forcibly dragging Randy away.

Glancing over her shoulder, Gwen looked back at Kitty.

I'm sorry, Gwen mouthed to Kitty as she and Randy walked away.

If Gwen's apology had any effect on the stricken Kitty, she didn't show it. Gwen was pained by the pain she saw in Kitty's eyes, pain she had seen in herself more than once.

There wasn't much she could do about it for the moment, since she needed to deal with Randy first.

"Let me go, Gwen!" Randy demanded, as Gwen finally did it. "She's got to-"

"If you're going to vent to someone, vent to me," Gwen interrupted him. "You need to talk about this."

Randy looked as if he was about to say something else, but then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"You know what it's about, of course," Randy said as he and Gwen sat down over coffee in a nearby park.

"Because you're black…right?" Gwen asked, wondering just how deep it all ran.

"Yeah," Randy said. "It's about feeling a chill down your spine when you get pulled over by the police. It's about redlining that keeps people like you from accessing decent services. It's about the media shoving their cameras in your face when you're grieving for a loved one, asking you if you forgive the animals who killed your family member in the first place while you still feel like your heart's been ripped out. It's about always checking how you express yourself-if you're too angry, people assume you're a violent sociopath and won't think about why you're so pissed off! That's what it's all about!" Randy said, his fists clenching in anger.

"But Kitty doesn't have to worry about any of that," Gwen said.

"Fuck no," Randy said, his eyes narrowing. "Kitty's a mutant, but she can just hide it. She never has to use her powers. She can just blend in, just be one of the crowd…and no one will look at her twice. And one of the only times she actually does use her powers, she's a complete goddamn coward and only saves herself."

"But she probably panicked," Gwen said. "Remember how she helped all those people with that subway train crash?" she said, referring to the accident that had injured Jill.

"Yeah, and how much danger was she in then?" Randy said. "It's easy for her to use her powers when there's no risk and most people won't even notice, isn't it?"

"So she should become a superhero?" Gwen asked.

"You did," Randy said. "And you've gotten to be pretty good at it."

"You didn't see me when I was just starting out," Gwen said. "I was reckless, and I could have hurt a lot of innocent people with the way I could fly off the handle. I was just lucky I didn't."

"Yeah, but would Kitty really hurt someone with her phasing powers?" Randy asked.

"Maybe not, but she'd have a much bigger problem," Gwen said. "She'd be likely to panic or freeze up again, especially if she's forcing herself to do something that she didn't even want to in the first place."

Randy opened his mouth to say something, but then found he couldn't.

"What happens then?" Gwen asked. "Either she gets herself killed, or she gets other people killed because she can't save them in time."

Randy sat in silence for a few moments, thinking it over.

"It still doesn't make what she did right, though," he said.

"Of course it doesn't," Gwen said, "but that's the big difference between me and Kitty. I want to use my spider powers as a superhero-and it took me a while to learn how to do it right. I know I can do a lot of good this way, so it's why I do it. But with Kitty…she just doesn't have what it takes. She told me as much."

Randy shook his head and didn't seem convinced.

"She could have done more to help you," he said. "She could have tried to protect the rest of us. She could be doing something, anything to help her people! Mutants like the X-Men risk their lives so the rest of them can try to live in peace. Sounds pretty damn familiar to me-and God knows I'm not perfect, but at least I'm trying to do something. What about Kitty?"

Gwen could only shrug resignedly.

"I wish I could say," she said. "But Kitty's the only one who can decide that."

Randy and Gwen sat in silence, neither one of them being able to think of what else they could say.

The next day…

Gwen walked across the Empire State University quad, wondering if Kitty would show up. She'd texted Kitty, offering to meet and talk things over with her. Gwen was very worried about Kitty's health, remembering what her doctor had told her about stress and what it could do to a person. The last thing Kitty needed was her guilt to start affecting her health-and Gwen knew that might already be happening, given how pale Kitty had been when Gwen had seen her yesterday.

To Gwen's relief, she saw Kitty sitting on a bench near where they'd agreed to meet. Calling out Kitty's name, Gwen quickly ran up to join her. Kitty slowly stood up, walking as if in a dream. When Gwen reached out to hug Kitty, she nearly fell into Gwen's arms, as if she didn't have the strength to even stand.

"Kitty…" Gwen said, hoping to draw something out of her.

"…Randy was right," Kitty said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I should have helped…I'm a coward…I'm a disgrace…" she said, clearly struggling even to talk.

"Don't worry about what Randy is saying," Gwen said, lifting Kitty's face to look into her eyes. She recognized the haunted look in Kitty's eyes, a look Gwen had seen in the mirror many times before. "Just take it easy," she said, sitting down with Kitty on the bench again.

"What am I supposed to do, Gwen?" Kitty said. "I should have used my powers to try and help Spider-Woman, but…"

"Kitty, if you didn't make mistakes, you wouldn't be a person," Gwen pointed out. "And how much practice do you have in a situation like that, anyway? How do you know you wouldn't have just gotten in Spider-Woman's way?"

Kitty looked as if she was about to say something, but she just frowned and looked away.

"I just can't handle it," she said. "I want to be involved in journalism-I don't want to put on a Halloween costume and go around picking fights with lunatics like Avalanche," she said, recalling the mutant extremist who'd made Kitty the unwilling target of his affections more than once. "I mean, would we even be talking about this if I wasn't a mutant?"

"That's kind of what Randy was so upset about," Gwen said. "He told me about some of the issues that the black community has-"

"Except that I can just blend in by not using my phasing powers," Kitty said. "Yeah, I thought as much. But what does it mean? If I'm a mutant, does that mean I absolutely have to say and do certain things? What if I don't think the way some of these mutant activists do, or I don't want to be involved in those sorts of things? Does that make me any less of a mutant? Am I a sellout, or what?"

Just as when she'd been talking to Randy yesterday, Gwen wasn't sure what to say. She wasn't a mutant any more than she was black, so she couldn't entirely understand what Kitty was going through.

"Well, if you did want to get involved, what would you do?" Gwen asked.

Kitty thought on that for a while.

"I'm not sure," she said. "Maybe help with activism instead of fighting. That's what I'd be a lot better at."

"Why don't you give it a try, then?" Gwen asked.

As Kitty thought it over, Gwen was pleased to see a tinge of color return to her cheeks.

"And if you do end up in a situation like Harry's dinner party again, maybe I can help you with that," Gwen said.

"What do you mean?" Kitty asked.

"Remember how I was teaching you martial arts?" Gwen said. "I could help you with that again. I was the best student in my class-third degree blackbelt."

"I don't know…" Kitty said with a frown.

"Martial arts isn't just about learning how to fight," Gwen said. "It's about building yourself up so you don't panic, and you can focus better. One of the main principles of martial arts is that you should only use them in self-defense. It's not like you're expected to actively go out and start fights."

"You'd do that?" Kitty asked in surprise.

"Why wouldn't I?" Gwen said with a shrug.

Kitty closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. To Gwen's delight, when Kitty opened her eyes again she seemed like her old self.

This time, when Gwen hugged Kitty, Kitty returned it twice over.

Later that afternoon, Gwen was on her way to her English class when she ran into William Huddleston, her professor for the class. Students who had taken classes with Professor Huddleston had nicknamed him the 'ice man' for his generally chilly disposition, and his lack of compassion for students he felt weren't applying themselves in his class. The stoic look on his face became one of active disapproval as he caught sight of Gwen.

For her part, Gwen felt her heart sinking as she approached him. Professor Huddleston had previously reproached her for what he considered her lack of effort in class. Even just looking at him, Gwen was sure he considered her to have much more in the way of beauty than brains. That irked Gwen to no end, but she didn't really fault him for it, not when all the other complications in her life had hampered her studies.

"So you actually decided to start coming to lectures again, Gwen?" Professor Hudson said, pushing his glasses up on his nose as Gwen came up to him. "And here I thought you decided to start coasting again."

"Coasting?" Gwen asked in surprise, before she winced. She remembered what Professor Huddleston was getting at, having missed her first English class after Spring Break had ended. She had been tied up with visiting Randy and looking in on Harry and Liz as Spider-Woman, and had all but forgotten about that first day of classes.

"Of course, coasting," Professor Huddleston said, tightening his grip on his briefcase as he and Gwen entered the Van Buren Building. "That's the impression I got from Dr. Connors, after all."

"Dr. Connors?" Gwen said, blinking in surprise. She had taken Dr. Connors' Biology classes as a freshman and again as a sophomore to get the science credits her Drama major demanded. Dr. Connors had reproached Gwen for what he considered to be her lack of effort, although she'd had the same problems she was having with Professor Huddleston. Fortunately, once Gwen had been able to put more of an effort into her studies, she'd done much better and praised by Dr. Connors for her work.

She doubted that she'd be as lucky with Professor Huddleston, though.

"Of course," Professor Huddleston said. "Dr. Connors mentioned several of his students who had most impressed him with the way they'd turned their grades around in his courses. After grading your midterm, I thought you'd be doing the same in my class, but after your missing our first class back I'm not impressed."

"I…" Gwen trailed off.

"It's sad, really," Professor Huddleston said as they approached the staircase leading to the second floor room where the class was held. "You did so well on your midterm, but then you get complacent."

"Then again, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised," he continued, glancing over his shoulder with a disapproving scowl as he walked up the stairs.

Gwen stayed at the bottom of the stairs for several long moments, breathing deeply as she tried to deal with the piercing headache she suddenly felt coming on.

The next day…

"Really, I don't mind paying your way too," Randy said to Gwen as they walked towards the Empire State University Student's Union Building.

"Maybe not, but I mind," Gwen said. She hadn't had any good acting or modeling work in a while, needing to take more time for herself to deal with the stress she'd been suffering. Unfortunately, that meant Gwen was broke, and Randy had to pay her share of the bill when they went out. Gwen was both embarrassed and frustrated by it, having always paid her share when she'd gone out with Randy.

Randy was about to say something else when he saw Kitty approaching from the other direction with a couple of her own classmates. His eyes narrowly as he focused on Kitty, clenching his fists as he began breathing heavily.

Gwen looked at Randy curiously, and quickly understood once she caught sight of Kitty. She quickly reached out and caught Randy's arm, turning him to face her.

"It's not going to solve anything," Gwen said. "Come on, let's go."

"But Gwen, I can't just-" Randy said, before he saw a look of alarm on Gwen's face.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his anger forgotten.

"My spider-senses," Gwen said, looking around. She had marked both Randy and Kitty with her pheromones, and they were now in danger. "I think-"

Gwen and Randy both understood what had triggered her spider-senses when they saw the couple approaching them. The man and the woman staring at Randy and Gwen looked like any other pair of Empire State students, at least until the man's skin began to change color and the woman twisted her necklace.

The woman's necklace erupted in a bright flash of light. When the light faded, the woman was clad in a form-fitting suit of red and black armor. The lower part of the armor's torso, as well as the upper arms and thighs, were a menacing black in color. The woman's armor was colored a gruesome crimson on its upper torso, its gloves and boots, and its helmet and facemask. The woman held a long, glowing staff in one hand, which she twirled menacingly.

The man's appearance had changed completely. His skin was now a hideous olive green, with a slimy, rubbery texture. Four long, green tentacles protruded from his torn clothes, which also revealed a pattern of gold marks down his chest and human limbs. His mouth had been replaced with a wicked-looking beak, which seemed to twist into an ugly smile as he glared at Gwen and Randy.

The Squid and Ms. Fortune looked just as they did the first time they confronted Harry Osborn and his friends. To Gwen and Randy, they were a decidedly unwelcome sight.

Gwen and Randy looked at each other. While Gwen had fought the Squid and Ms. Fortune before as Spider-Woman, she couldn't use her powers in public without giving away her secret identity. Gwen was wearing her spandex Spider-Woman costume underneath the long-sleeved sweater and jeans she had on, but she had no chance of suiting up before the villains attacked.

"You had to know you were next, didn't you?" the Squid said, a hateful light in his eyes. "Did you really think you'd be able to get off any easier than Osborn and his little cunt?"

Gwen's mind raced frantically as she tried to figure out what to do.

Kitty's eyes widened as she recognized the Squid and Ms. Fortune. They had Randy and Gwen dead to rights, and Kitty felt a chill run down her spine.

She felt something else, though.

Before Kitty realized what she was doing, she began to run.

Gwen's first instinct was to charge the Squid and Ms. Fortune, hoping that they would focus on her and give Randy time to escape. Unfortunately, the villains simply divided their attention, Ms. Fortune firing an energy bolt from her staff at Gwen while the Squid lashed out with his tentacles at Randy.

Gwen managed to dodge Ms. Fortune's energy blast, but Randy suffered a glancing blow from one of the Squid's tentacles. Knocked onto his back, Randy rose to a sitting position and tried to shake off his dizziness. Unfortunately, the Squid lashed out at him again, his tentacles aimed directly at Randy's head this time.

The Squid laughed as his tentacle came down, angled to cave in Randy's skull.

To the Squid's shock, his tentacle seem to pass right through Randy, who continued shaking his head as if he hadn't noticed the tentacle. That was when the Squid caught sight of the young brown-haired woman holding onto Randy's arm. The Squid struck at her with another one of his tentacles, but it passed right through her too.

"Gwen!" the brown-haired woman called out to Gwen, who ran back to join her. When the brown-haired woman caught hold of Gwen's arm, the Squid's tentacles passed through her too.

Must be a goddamn mutant or something, the Squid realized. Fine then-she dies too!

"Kitty?" Gwen said in surprise, before Kitty grabbed her arm. Gwen flinched as the Squid's tentacle passed through her, although she felt no pain. It took her a moment to realize that Kitty had extended her mutant phasing powers to her. To her immense relief, she saw that Kitty was holding Randy with her other arm, and she was protecting him as well.

"Come on, run!" Kitty said, pulling Gwen to run with Randy.

Gwen had another idea, though.

"Get us into the Student's Union Building!" Gwen said, gesturing with her free hand at the window behind them. "We can split up in there, and maybe try and lose them!"

Kitty did just that, keeping a tight grip on Randy and Gwen as she phased them through the window and into the Building foyer. Kitty released Randy and Gwen once they passed all the way through the window, and they quickly separated. Kitty ran in one direction, and Randy ran in another, even as Ms. Fortune began blasting the window so she and the Squid could follow them into the building.

Gwen began to run as well, but unlike her friends she wasn't planning to escape.

It didn't take her long to find a suitable hiding place, or to make the necessary changes.

The Squid and Ms. Fortune stormed into the Student's Union Building, furious at losing their targets.

"What now?" Ms. Fortune asked, looking around to see where their targets might have fled.

"Take some hostages," the Squid said without hesitation. His tentacles began snaking towards several Empire State students. The students tried to run, but there was no way they could escape the tentacles.

They didn't need to, as two strands of silvery-grey webbing came forward and entangled the Squid's tentacles. The Squid instinctively snapped the webbing apart by flexing his tentacles, before he turned to face the red-and-gold clad figure of the spectacular Spider-Woman, who stared coldly at him and Ms. Fortune.

The Squid and Ms. Fortune looked at one another, and nodded. They had anticipated Spider-Woman's interference, and had discussed how to handle it. The Squid charged at Spider-Woman, spreading his tentacles out to prevent her from getting by. At the same time, Ms. Fortune ran off down another hallway, firing random blasts from her staff to try and draw out her targets.

Spider-Woman cursed at her disadvantage. In her previous battle with the Squid and Ms. Fortune, she'd been able to deal with them both at the same time because they were fighting in a confined space. All of the villains' targets were in one place, so they had little reason to split up. Now, though, it was a completely different story.

The Squid's tentacles seemed to come from every direction, forcing Spider-Woman to continually dodge as she looked for an opening. She tried countering with her sting blasts, but while they could hurt the Squid, they weren't particularly effective. The Squid's lack of bones and internal organs in his monstrous form made him more resistant to injury than he looked. Finally, the Squid managed to trip Spider-Woman up with his tentacles. Grabbing her arm as she stumbled, the Squid slammed her once and again into a nearby wall, before lashing her with his free tentacles.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, Spider-Woman sprayed her webbing in an arc around her, entangling the Squid's tentacles. As the Squid let up his attack, Spider-Woman broke free, and shot her webbing at the Squid again, entangling his human arms and legs. The Squid managed to break his tentacles free of her webbing again, but he stumbled as he lost his balance. He fell to his knees, only to take a sting blast in the face as Spider-Woman charged towards him. The Squid drove his entangled human fists into Spider-Woman's gut, but she gritted away the pain and viciously kicked him in the face. As the Squid flew back, Spider-Woman caught him with another sting blast.

The Squid caught himself with some of his tentacles, tearing his human limbs free of the webbing tangling them while he used his other tentacles to deflect Spider-Woman's sting blasts. He struck at Spider-Woman again, battering her with his tentacles while twisting out of the way of the next sting blasts she shot at him.

Spider-Woman was expecting that move. Entangling the Squid's tentacles with her webbing again, she repeated his original strategy, brutally slamming him into a wall. She slammed him again, before his tentacles snapped her webbing once more. Despite it all, the Squid got to his feet again. This time, he struck with his tentacles one after another, keeping Spider-Woman off balance. He followed up by pointing his human limbs at Spider-Woman, spraying a wave of black ink-like ooze at her. She managed to dodge the ink blast, but her frustration was building as she tried to think of how to end this fight quickly.

Spider-Woman recalled the pain she'd seen on Harry's and Kitty's faces, and the physical injuries the Squid and Ms. Fortune had inflicted on Randy and Kong.

Her eyes flashed angrily.

She aimed for the Squid's human limbs again, but this time with her sting blasts rather than her webbing. The Squid cried out in pain as her blasts struck home, and she realized her guess was correct. The Squid was more vulnerable in his human limbs than in his tentacles, as they still needed bones to support his weight. He lashed out at Spider-Woman with his tentacles again, but she entangled them with her webbing and pulled him off balance. As the Squid stumbled forward, Spider-Woman leapt over his tentacles and got in close to him.

Spider-Woman slammed the Squid's human arms with a vicious double chop, before striking his legs with quick, brutal kicks. As he staggered from her attacks, groaning in pain, Spider-Woman brought her hands in close to his chest and caught him with a double sting blast. He staggered from Spider-Woman's first attack, falling unconscious when she struck him a second time.

Kitty passed through another wall, her heart pounding. She had no idea where Gwen or Randy were, and she could only hope they'd escaped. While she'd apparently gotten away from that octopus-guy, Kitty could hear the lady in the armor stomping through a nearby hallway, and the screams of some of the students as they fled her energy blasts.

"Alright, I've had it!" Kitty heard Ms. Fortune shout, followed by the crash of a wall being hit with another energy bolt. "I know Osborn's little friends are still here! You've all got one minute before I start taking people out! If you don't want as much blood on your hands as Osborn, then you'll get your asses over here! Now!" Ms. Fortune yelled.

Kitty shivered, realizing that she didn't have any other options.

Ms. Fortune was almost out of patience. She had cornered a group of students, keeping them in place by pointing her staff at them. The hole she had already blasted in a nearby wall convinced them to stay in place.

She heard running footsteps behind her, and whirled around, expecting to face Spider-Woman.

Ms. Fortune was startled to see Kitty running at her, and was too slow to react as Kitty phased directly through her and her armor.

Most of the students Ms. Fortune cornered ran once her back was turned, but one of them paused at the loud sound of static in the air. Turning around, the student was surprised to see Ms. Fortune trembling violently, as her body armor began to glow.

The student stared in disbelief, as Ms. Fortune cried out in pain. He exchanged glances with Kitty, at a loss as to what was going on.

Kitty was just as unsure. She wondered if Ms. Fortune's armor was malfunctioning due to her having phased through it. Kitty didn't cause similar problems for living things or other inanimate objects when she passed through them, so she couldn't be sure.

Then, Kitty remembered that it didn't matter. Recalling what Gwen had taught her about kicks in the martial arts lessons Gwen had given her when they'd shared an apartment, Kitty pivoted on one foot, using the other one to catch Ms. Fortune square in the abdomen.

Kitty's blow wouldn't have hurt Ms. Fortune much by itself, but they were standing at the top of a stairway. Ms. Fortune staggered back from Kitty's kick, and screamed as she lost her balance and began tumbling down the stairs.

Finally, Ms. Fortune landed with a loud crash at the base of the steps. She groaned painfully, unable to move from where she was lying.

Kitty exchanged glances with the student who had remained behind, both of them just as stunned at what Kitty had done.

That was when Kitty realized she was drenched in a cold sweat, and her heart was pounding like a jackhammer.

Breathing heavily, she slumped to her hands and knees, shaking violently as the student tried to reassure her.

The badly beaten Squid, now back in his human form, walked alongside the badly bruised Ms. Fortune, stripped of her staff and most of her armor, as the police led them away. Most of the students avoided them, but Gwen came up to confront them.

"Don't think this is over, you bitch," Laura Fortune said, staring threateningly at Gwen. "We're going to kill you and-"

"You two lost any right you might have had to sympathy the moment you started threatening Harry," Gwen said. "Threatening somebody who never did anything to you, and then trying to kill other people who never even knew Norman? You deserve all this."

"You don't know what Norman did to my dad-" Donny Callahan said, before Gwen interrupted him.

"And I don't care," Gwen said. "You think you're the only ones who've suffered loss in their lives? Try asking Harry what it was like living as Norman's son-that is, if you're man enough to handle it," she said, before turning away from Donnie, Laura and the police.

Gwen began searching for Randy and Kitty, eager to see if they were all right. Another one of the students had told her about Kitty's heroics, and she was eager to see if Kitty was all right.

Gwen would have been alarmed to see how pale and shaken Kitty was, but her worry was overcome by surprise at Randy sitting next to her on a couch, his arm around her shoulders.

"Are you guys okay?" Gwen asked as she came up to them.

Leaving Kitty on the couch, Randy stood up to join Gwen.

"I'm fine," he said, "but what about you? That Squid guy didn't hurt you too bad, did he?"

"Nothing that won't heal," Gwen assured him. "How about Kitty?"

"She's really shaken up," Randy said. "I tried to reassure her, and that seemed to help. You heard about what she did?"

"How could I not?" Gwen asked. "Are you and she…" she trailed off.

Randy frowned and looked back at Kitty.

"We'll talk later," Gwen said, before she and Randy sat down on either side of Kitty.

"How are you holding up, sweetie?" Gwen asked, touching Kitty on the shoulder.

Kitty started and looked up at Gwen. The expression on her face wasn't guilt, just shock.

"You're a real hero, you know that?" Gwen asked. "Without you, I don't know what Randy and I would have done."

"I don't feel like a hero," Kitty said. "I just feel like I'm going to faint."

"Well, take it easy," Gwen said. "All you need to do right now is rest."

Gwen put her arms around Kitty, hugging her tightly as she nearly fell asleep in Gwen's arms.

(Next Issue: Gwen tries to balance her university grades with her efforts to find modeling and acting work again. She starts to succeed with help from her old contact Jonathan Caesar, but things become more complicated when the Chameleon, in his new guise as Cornelius Van Lunt, hatches a criminal plot against his rivals! All this and more in Spider-Woman #95: Hail Caesar!)