Looking at her father's shocked expression, Gwen lowered her head.
She had been found out after all!
Gwen wearily raised her head and said to her father, "Dad, let me explain..."
"I just wish you'd told me sooner."
George's expression was exceptionally solemn.
"I thought about it, I've always thought about it..."
Gwen's emotions suddenly calmed down. Since her identity as Spider-Woman had been exposed, there was nothing left to hide.
In fact, she felt a sense of relief.
"But if I spoke out, maybe a lot of things would change."
Gwen's tone was full of helplessness. "Dad, you've never liked Spider-Woman. I didn't know how to tell you."
George shook his head and said, "Yes, I don't like her. But if you wanted to imitate her, or even wear her costume to perform at the prom, I think... that's definitely not a good idea."
Gwen nodded instinctively. "I know... huh?"
She immediately realized something was wrong.
Judging by what her father said, he seemed to think she had simply made a Spider-Woman costume to wear for cosplay.
Dad didn't suspect she was Spider-Woman?
That was—truly wonderful!
Gwen immediately felt as if she had been given a new lease on life, her sagging spirits instantly rebounding.
"Yes, I wanted to wear this Spider-Man suit to the prom, so I specially bought it on eBay. But apparently, they sent me a battle-damaged version of the Spider-Man suit. Maybe I should consider returning it to the seller."
Gwen immediately came up with an excuse to deal with her father.
"Right now, Spider-Woman is involved in the Hell's Kitchen missing persons case. She's a criminal suspect, not some idolized superhero."
George frowned at Gwen.
The patch of human skin found on Wutong Street in Hell's Kitchen had been tested, and a substance similar to spider gland secretions was discovered on it.
The secretions bore no similarity to any real-world spiders; instead, they resembled an advanced synthetic compound.
Furthermore, when compared to the "Webbing" shot by Spider-Woman that was on file at the police station, they showed a high degree of similarity.
Therefore, the New York Police Department had already targeted Spider-Woman as their main suspect.
Gwen had also heard about the "Skin-Collector" incident in Hell's Kitchen, but she wasn't about to take the blame for that.
"You're a good cop, Dad, but you've fallen into a kind of paranoia. You always want to prove that Spider-Woman is a villain, a monster."
Gwen looked into her father's eyes and said, "But how can we define a person so easily?"
She hoped more than anything to gain her father's approval.
Even if that identity was Spider-Woman, even if her father didn't know the person behind the mask was her, she still longed for that validation.
As Spider-Woman, she felt fear, confusion, and frustration.
She felt so much pressure from failing to live up to other people's expectations that she would hug the Spider-Man suit in the bathroom and cry silently.
She felt despair when she couldn't save her classmate, facing Blackwatch.
Yet despite all the hardships, she still felt it was necessary for her to wear the mask and do something.
Just like what her father often told her: if you don't do these things, then others certainly won't.
On the other side, seeing his daughter speak to him with such absolute earnestness, George was slightly stunned for a moment.
After a while, he said to her, "She's not a cop, and she has no right to act as a vigilante. More importantly, the moment she puts on that mask, she cuts off communication... She might be a good person, or she might be a monster, but that mask blocks out all trust!"
"So you'd rather guess that she's a monster than believe she's a good person?"
"You should get some rest, Gwen."
George didn't continue the debate with his daughter. He shook his head and turned to leave.
"You're always like this, Dad. Why is it that every time I try to talk to you, you choose to run away? Why won't you keep talking to me?"
Gwen said with an agitated tone, "You always put on this face, acting like you understand everything and disdaining to argue about anything, ever since mom has been gone..."
Seeing Gwen growing more and more emotional, George spoke up to stop her from continuing.
"Enough!"
George's expression turned somewhat ugly.
"I... I'm sorry."
Gwen snapped out of her father's stern reprimand. After a moment, she lowered her head and apologized.
George said nothing more and walked out of Gwen's room, leaving her standing in place, head down, arms wrapped around herself.
The bright moonlight shone in, casting a faint layer of silver frost across the room.
Gwen suddenly felt her body grow as cold as the "silver frost" on the floor.
...
Meanwhile.
In Hell's Kitchen, in a room likewise blanketed in "silver frost," Carl King—whose invitation to Gwen to be his prom date had ended in failure—was standing behind his front door, talking to someone outside through the peephole.
"You're asking about my parents? I'm sorry, they went on a trip and haven't come back yet. Maybe they'll be back next week."
Carl King tried his best to keep his voice sounding normal.
The person outside was a good friend of his parents. Having not seen them for several days, he had come by to check on them.
"Is that so? Well, be sure to let me know when they get back."
Although the man standing outside found it strange that the couple had gone on a trip without saying goodbye, he simply shook his head and left.
After the man left, Carl King let out a long breath of relief.
On his chubby, round face, beneath deep-eye sockets, the fierce look in his eyes softened a bit.
If the door had been opened and the man had stepped inside, he would have been utterly terrified.
Because this apartment had completely transformed into a dark, deep "cave."
The blinds outside the window were tattered beyond recognition, and dense spiderwebs covered every corner of the inside.
The dilapidated floor was stained with blood and grime, and black spiders dropped periodically from the pitch-black walls, which gleamed with a sticky liquid.
The entire apartment was suffused with a foul, repulsive stench.
Treading up the stairs, he slowly entered the second floor and pushed open a bedroom door.
This used to be his parents' master bedroom.
The bedroom was choked with layers of accumulated spiderwebs, coating the floor and walls entirely.
His parents lay on the bed, wrapped in spider silk.
However, they could hardly be considered alive anymore—they couldn't even be called corpses.
Two limp skins hung loosely, their facial features still clearly visible.
Brown hair mixed with white spiderwebs draped over the human skins, looking exceptionally horrifying.
"Dad, Mom, your friend wanted to come see you, but I chased him off."
Carl King said with a bizarre expression to his "parents." "Still, I bet he never imagined you'd both been eaten by me."
"Please don't resent me. After spiders in nature lay their eggs, don't their young eat them up? So... this is just the law of nature."
After finishing his monologue to his "parents," he walked out of their room and headed toward his own.
He had to prepare for Friday's spring prom.
Right there at the spring prom, he would eat that Spider-Woman who had dared to reject him, and absorb her powers... how about that?!