Gwen didn’t know what it was like to have people around her who were on her team. She had been a solo act back home, and she was a solo act here. For someone like her, someone so extroverted that she needed the human contact to feel good and safe, it was a terrible condition to try and be a superhero in. She needed help, needed reassurance, and there she was, with no one in her corner and the police after her for something that she hadn’t done. It got so achingly lonely for so long that she forgot what that ache felt like. She forgot that she wanted to have someone, anyone help her with being Spider-Woman, someone to just tell her that she was right for once. It got hard, being alone, but at least she got used to it. She figured out how to make her way on her own. She didn’t like it, but she could do it, and for her, when everything was falling apart at home, that was good enough.
When she finally did start to find people who were on her side, they were all from different universes. Yeah, she had people in her corner now, but it wasn’t like they were always going to be there. She valued these friendships highly, but she wished that they weren’t limited to whatever short time they spent dimension-hopping. Jess was one of the people who she cared about, a lot, but Gwen hadn’t been able to find her in this universe. And after things fell out with Miles, Jess was the only person here who knew her as her. Gwen had pretty much given up on trying to find her, figuring that if Gwen couldn’t find her by now, it meant that Jess didn’t want to be found. It was infuriating, sure, but Gwen knew that she should just step back and try and figure out how to make a place for herself in this universe. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she had to start sometime.
Hearing the familiar voice behind her made her almost jump out of her skin. She turned around quickly, looking at Jess for a moment before a wide smile spread across her features. “Jess?” She took a few steps closer and wrapped her arms around the other woman tightly, not caring that they were in the middle of the sidewalk or that they hadn’t seen each other in a long time. She had been desperately searching for someone who knew her, not this jilted version of her that was mostly a facade to try and get her through a few days in a different universe without letting everything fall apart, and here Jess was, the whole time. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you.”
It really was her. Jessica Drew was naturally suspicious in ways that she would never be able to shake—they were too deeply ingrained in her upbringing and personality—but even as her instincts were on stunned alert, the rest of her was just washed over with a deep and unfamiliar delight. Jessica had more personal space issues than most of the Avengers——sort of to be expected, given how she’d discovered her venom blasts——but even that natural sense of discomfort was subdued by the unexpected sense of relief she had when Gwen was physically connected to her.
Wrapping her arms around Gwen in return, albeit more slowly——this really was not one of Jessica’s strengths, physical displays of affection... or displays of affection in general, really——Jess just settled herself into the embrace. Of course, part of her mind and senses were still scouting out the world around them, but that was a leftover instinct that she would never manage to silence even if she wanted to, not because she thought there was any actual need for it.
“I went dark for a bit,” Jess explained, leaning back only slightly to look at Gwen as she said it, soaking in her friend’s face. “I’m a PI again, now that...” her voice trailed off slightly, before rolling her eyes and squaring her shoulders, “well, now that the Program’s in place.” She glanced at Gwen to check for a flicker of recognition, to ascertain that Gwen knew of this aspect of this world. Speaking of, how long had Gwen been around? “I had to break in somewhere to get some info, and I needed a while to work through it anyway, so I just... kept myself off the grid for a while,” she continued, shrugging. “I’d have made myself available immediately if I’d known you were around, though! How long—” Jess started saying, before cutting herself off. “D’you want to continue this conversation, like, anywhere else? There’s a diner about a block away that’s not terrible and people give you respect, and also, I have an apartment.” Whether the state of it was appropriate for visitors, Jess couldn’t remember——she didn’t spend a lot of time there——but it definitely existed.