American comic book: Absolute Spider-Man

At 3:30 p.m., the school bell rang.

Peter and Gwen walked out of the gates of Midtown High School side by side, not heading towards Queens, but just wandering aimlessly on the street.

"Where are you going to take me?" Gwen asked.

Peter looked up at the sky.

In late March, at 3:30 pm in New York, it was still bright outside.

But you can feel spring—not the spring on the calendar, but the real spring in the air.

The wind blew in from the Hudson River, a kilometer away, carrying a slight dampness; it wasn't cold, just cool.

The sunlight fell on my shoulders, dispelling the chill.

Peter looked away. "Let's just wander around. I've been so busy making money lately that it's been a long time since I've had a leisurely stroll down the main street after school like this."

Gwen looked at Peter.

He wore a dark gray wool coat over a black turtleneck sweater, his trousers were impeccably pressed, and his leather shoes were polished to a shine. His hair was meticulously styled, even the angle of his bangs seemed carefully calculated.

He stood there, back ramrod straight, expression composed, a faint smile on his lips. He didn't look like a high school student who had just turned seventeen; instead, he seemed as mature as a Wall Street upstart who had stepped out of a financial magazine.

She suddenly remembered Peter Parker, who used to wear patched-up old clothes, whose hair was always messy and hung down over his forehead, and who habitually walked with his head down.

Peter, who would only clench his fists but never fight back when he was trapped in the corridor by lightning.

Peter, who answered questions in class with a soft voice but whose answers were always correct.

Peter, whose ears turned as red as if they were about to bleed when she first struck up a conversation with him.

he's changed.

The person standing in front of her was no longer the bookish guy she had first stopped in the hallway.

"What's wrong?" Peter noticed her gaze and tilted his head slightly.

Gwen shook her head and smiled.

"It's nothing," she said. "It's just that...you've changed a lot."

"What, you don't like how you look now?"

Gwen didn't answer. She stepped forward and reached out to straighten his collar—it was already quite neat and didn't need any adjustment.

"You're still the same person," she said, "except... you're much happier now than before."

Peter looked into her light blue, jewel-like eyes, wanting to say something, but in the end he just smiled.

I'm much happier now.

He reached out his hand to Gwen, and she placed it in his palm, which Peter gently grasped.

The two walked hand in hand along the street to the George Washington Bridge.

They walked up the walkway beside the bridge. The bridge was quiet on the pedestrian side, with occasional cyclists passing by, their bicycle bells ringing once before disappearing into the wind.

The view from the bridge is expansive, with the Hudson River spreading out beneath your feet, its grey-blue surface shimmering with tiny ripples.

The Manhattan skyline in the distance resembles a row of uneven teeth, with glass curtain walls reflecting the afternoon sun, making the whole city glow.

Peter leaned against the railing, looking at the city skyline in the distance, but his gaze wasn't on the glass curtain wall; he was thinking about something else.

He looked up at the steel truss arch that stretched across the sky above the bridge.

The main structure of the George Washington Bridge is a heavy, arched structure woven from steel, like a giant ridge spanning the river. The arch hangs high above the roadway, from which steel cables hang down one by one, like the strings of a harp.

He knew that location.

He has a picture in his memory—a person wearing a red and blue bodysuit standing there, reaching down.

A green demon grabbed a blonde girl, stood atop the highest beam of the bridge, and then let go.

The girl's hair spread out in the wind, like a golden flag.

The man shot out a spider silk thread that stuck to the girl's ankle.

The spider silk taut, and the girl's body shuddered violently in the wind, ceasing its descent, and then...

Gwen didn't notice that her attention was drawn to a tugboat on the river.

The boat was slowly moving downstream, leaving a white trail in its wake, like a zipper opening and closing the river surface.

“The last person to bring me here was my dad,” Gwen said, her voice softening. “He pointed across the river and said, ‘That’s New Jersey.’ I said I knew. He said, ‘What do you know?’ I said, ‘I know that’s not New York.’ And he laughed.”

Peter did not respond.

He knew Gwen didn't often talk about her father. Sheriff George Stacy was a good man, but he was so busy with work that Gwen learned to eat alone, do her homework alone, and handle everything alone.

"How has he been lately?" Peter asked.

"It's alright," Gwen said. "His job has been much easier lately because I'm always patrolling the skies over New York, and I stop a lot of crimes as soon as they happen—but he still complains."

She turned her head to look at Peter, a slightly helpless smile on her lips.

"Guess what he said? 'What if a girl falls from a high-rise building all day long?'"

"He didn't know it was you."

“He didn’t know,” Gwen said, “but as a father of a daughter, he genuinely cares about other people’s children. That’s why he became a police officer.”

Peter was silent for a moment. He wanted to say, "You should tell him," but he knew he couldn't.

Gwen has her own choices, just as he has things he can't tell Gwen.

As they reached the center of the bridge, the sun sank further down.

The light changed from gold to orange-red, falling on Gwen's profile and making her features look soft and warm.

Peter suddenly stopped.

"What's wrong?" Gwen asked.

"It's nothing," he said. "I just... wanted to see you."

Gwen paused for a moment, then blushed.

She wasn't the type to blush easily, but Peter's tone was a bit too self-righteous when he said it.

"What's wrong with you today?" she said, her voice tinged with a hint of reproach, but the corners of her mouth were turned up.

"Nothing much," Peter said. "I just wanted to do something I'd never dared to do before."

"for example?"

"For example, staring at you."

Gwen reached out and gave him a very, very light push, but Peter cooperated and stumbled to the side.

They both laughed, and their laughter was carried away by the wind, falling onto the river and mingling with the shimmering, golden light.

They stayed on the bridge for almost an hour, walking from the middle of the bridge to the New Jersey end, and then turning back.

We talked a lot, but also talked about nothing. Sometimes you don't need to talk. You just need to walk side by side, hand in hand, listening to the sound of the early spring wind and your footsteps mixed together.

By the time Peter came down from the bridge, the sun was almost touching the horizon. He hailed a taxi and drove to the Ironing District.

"Where to next?" Gwen asked.

"Let's eat," Peter said.