Since that first school day, you had stuck with Peter and Ned. Ned had taught you everything you could possibly know about Star Wars... Even though you were yet to actually watch the films. And he'd been there to direct you around the typical ways of his school life, something that had you in fits of laughter and in deep interest whenever he had his moments of intellect. But Peter was another story. You didn't realise how much you needed another half to your spidery antics. It was good to have someone to try out the suit features with and to talk about web fluid to without feeling under authority like you normally did. He was you in every sense of the word but so different in every other way. He had a different story with a mirrored plot. And you'd ended up spending all of your days with him recently.
"Yeah, we're getting on well," You nod to Tony, nudging at the Chinese food in your takeaway pot with absent insentive, "He's a good guy,"
Stark cocks a brow at you and peers at your reaction over his food, "So you like him, huh?"
You roll your eyes, "What are you getting at?"
"I'm just saying," He raises his hands, "You two seem to be spending a lot of time together without me forcing you,"
You push your fork into a piece of chicken and lift it up, "It's nothing,"
Tony had become somewhat of a father figure to you. Originally, both of you had completely denied it. But in his protectiveness, his teaching and his presence, he'd become the Dad you didn't think you'd ever have. You usually liked your dynamic... Until it got to moments like this.
"I'm leaving now," You mutter, pushing your leftover food towards him before he asks for it, "And before you ask about where I'm going, it's just studying,"
"Don't start lying to m-"
It's no use. You've already slammed the door.
On recent evenings, you and Peter had been teaming up to go and make the most of your suits and abilities. You would come up with stupid challenges and occasionally even helping out with a few neighbourhood ongoings.
"Psst," Peter's sound is only just audible over the street noise as you walk down the street, finding no oddity in the fact that you were completely dressed in your suit.
You glance up to see him perched on a ledge of the building above you, his legs swinging down and his demeanour looking oddly mysterious in the low lighting. It is in the blink of the eye that you are up there to join him, falling into the same posture.
"So, what's the plan?" You ask, his arm brushing against yours enough for you to be thankful that this suit hid your goosebumps.
"I say we go for a climb," Peter nods with an assertive confidence that only ever shone through when he became spiderman and no longer the typical schoolboy.
You raise your brows and watch as he swings himself from the ledge, swinging across to the adjacent building and the next and the next until the two of you reach a tower that is taller than you'd want to admit. Yes, superheroes could still be afraid of heights.
Peter wiggles his brows, "I've wanted to do it for ages but-"
"Yeah, it's pretty scary," You laugh, responding to a statement he was reluctant to say. You see the way he relaxes a little more.
The two of you stand in silence for a little longer, both questioning this in your head. Tony, or Mr Stark to Peter, would probably kill you. Good job he wasn't here...
"What are we waiting for?" You shrug, shooting your trusty web to latch yourself to the smooth brick of the tower, another web catching higher to pull you further up.
Peter hesitates but was quick to follow, trying his best to keep up with your streamlined pace.
You connect your web with the balcony that hung out from the tower and swing yourself onto it, catching your hands on the metal structure with utter relief that your climb had been terminated.
"Holy sh-" Peter begins but breaks into a laugh that stops him from finishing that exclamatory.
You laugh too because one thing you'd learnt about Parker was he had a ridiculously infectious laugh. You weren't complaining.
"God this is high," He mumbles, eyes scanning across the wide view of the city in front of you, all slowly becoming lit by a nighttime routine.
You hum in agreeance and find yourself reaching for his hand, the contact in your intertwined fingers making you feel a little more grounded. Peter evidently tenses at the touch before he welcomes the feeling, letting his hand mould perfectly to yours.
"Tony keeps asking about you," You comment, your eyes averting from the city landscape to glance at him.
"Re-really? Why?" Peter stutters, his free hand scratching at the back of his neck through the suit.
"He thinks we like each other," You smirk and watch the evident surprise in Peter's reaction, "I'd be careful, he can get pretty protective when he wants to be," With that, you drop yourself from the edge of the balcony, letting your web catch you from your fall and swinging across before attaching to a lower part to pull yourself down further until you eventually collide with the ground, flipping to reduce the harsh impact.
"Stop doing that!" Peter exclaims when he catches up, "I always think you're falling,"
You chuckle and tug the hood of your suit from your head, shaking your hair out and welcoming the cool breeze brushing through your recently enclosed locks. Peter does the same and you're definitely certain his hair looks millions better than yours. His hair always looked pretty damn perfect.
"I'll see you in the morning, Parker," You smile, pressing an impromptu kiss to his cheek before turning away to head back 'home' to Tony. Your companion was certainly glad you couldn't see the furious red blush on his face, something that felt brighter than the crimson of his suit.
It was only the next day when you returned to school and fell into the typical step down the corridor with Peter and Ned. Ned stood in the middle of you two, chatting about something that currently held all of his interest but, sadly, something you also knew nothing about. As much as possible, you tried to keep up with his in-depth knowledge on the subject but the extensive use of terminology fell short of your attention span for a Friday morning. Instead, you couldn't help but notice how Peter's eyes kept catching with yours and lingering there for a moment too long. They were always far too short lived forever as his gaze was broken by someone walking the other way down the corridor and breaking up your row formation.
"Alright, this is me," You mention, directing yourself toward the calc class, "Peter, I'll see you in chem?"
Peter nods in response, "Ye-yeah, totally,"
He internally kicked himself for the crappy response. But you were already gone.
It didn't take long. The threads of hair on your forearm standing to loyal attention. The blood rushing in your ears appearing to accelerate just a little too much. The unnatural strength to the clench in your fist.
With overwhelming instincts to encourage you, you bolt up from that chair and get out of the class as quickly as possible, only running as soon as the prying eyes of your classmates no longer had view of you. Unsurprisingly, you see Peter only a few paces ahead, clearly with the same spidery instincts to persistently force him to follow them.
He glances over his shoulder and picks up his pace a little, hurrying out of school and down the street. It is the little glances over his shoulder as he hurries that make you laugh, wanting to pick up your pace more and more.
"Peter!" You hiss, jogging to catch up as he pushes through a back alley gate and breaks into a sort of run.
"Come on, (Y/l/n)!" He turns around so he's jogging backwards, his eyes focused on you.
You cock a brow and run at him, flipping over him and just about grazing his hair as you land in front of him, stopping his steps all together.
"Come on, Parker," You smirk and he looks at you with blinking eyes for just a second before breaking into a bold grin.
"So you got the same instinct?" He brings you back down to the task at hand, tugging at the shoes on his feet and reaching for his suit from the bag.
"Something like that," You nod before silently following his actions to change into the suit that matched his.
It made your heart flip a little when he was respectful enough to turn around as soon as you started to change, waiting with his eyes on the wall until you said anything more.
"You're good, Peter," You comment, pressing on the chest of your suit to fit it to your body.
"Oh yeah, yeah, well I just wanted to make sure I-" He scratches at the back of his neck, looking down to kick his feet against the ground.
"Peter?" You smile, waiting until he looks back up at you, "I appreciate it. Can we go now?"
He nods enthusiastically before hurrying to follow you down the rest of the corridor, following your trusty spidey sense to reach closer to your destination.
You two chase your way through the Brooklyn city streets to reach your desired destination and you instantly see the way Peter's demeanour changes.
"Vulture" He mutters under his breath and you instantly whip your head round to look at him, "I think I should handle this,"
"Are you kidding?" You scoff, "Tony's already told me everything,"
Peter goes to respond but it all happens too quickly as a bone shattering grip lifts you from the ground with no chance of avoidance.
"(Y/n)!" Peter screams, shooting his web towards the Vulture with no success.
Your legs kick viciously at the metal death clasp you were locked in, each movement being defeated by the overwhelming strength that consumed you.
You can't see your companion now, only hear the repetitive defeats in each of his attempts to save you. But you can feel yourself ascending, moving through the air without any orientation for where.
"Peter!" You yell and the ringing in your ears is almost enough to drown out the overwhelming strangled sound to your desperation.
He's chasing you but with no success. And then you're falling. Your agile body tearing freely through the still air at a pace you didn't want to imagine.
"No!" It's Peter's voice but you can't make out where it comes from before you plummet to the ground, smacking against the concrete in a deathly blow. Your ears sound with a mind blowing ring, one that you feel in every inch of your body. Your legs are being weighed down by an aching desire to remain still and prevent all possible movement. Your hair feels stickier against your hood with a pooling blood you were dreading to see.
"No, no, no, no," You hear Peter's voice repeating as he runs over to you, crouching down beside your still form to check upon your state. He's pulled back in a matter of seconds, ripping away from you with another deathly grip from Vulture. The enemy throws him to the side like discarded metal before powering over to you once again with sickening intent. You're lifted once more into his grip, whipping through the air again until you feel Peter's resistance - the web latching onto his metal structure and pulling back any strong movements that would drag you further away from him.
Your one arm is thankfully free this time, the Vulture's grip cold against your covered hands.
"Peter!" You scream like it is the only word you're capable of saying.
He focuses on you, web shooter directed at yours as they're both shot at the same time. In an odd moment of hopeful logic, your webs intertwine with enough force to direct fully at the Vulture, wrapping around him and the surprise loosening his grip instantly. And then you're falling again. This time into something that felt harsher than any concrete. You couldn't fall into the water. This goddamn suit wasn't made for water. But Tony was smart enough for web wings to be an invention. Their instant loyalty spreads from your sides, catching you in a drift with your body just inches from the body of water beneath you. You catch yourself through the air, drifting across the light wind and circling back round to the fight at hand.
The Vulture was backing away now, stumbling away from you and Peter before flying away. Neither of you had the insentive to follow. You knew he'd eventually return.
You drop your web wings, falling to the ground in a forward roll before letting your body slump against the warm concrete floor.
"Holy shit, (Y/n), are you okay?" Peter hurries to your side, his hand catching on your shoulders like he needed some contact to know you were actually there.
You groan and lift up your arm to tug the hood from your head, dropping your arm back to the floor, "I'm good,"
Peter pulls his hood off too, running a hand through his untamed locks, "No you're not,"
You frown at him and push up onto your elbows, "Honestly, I'm okay,"
"Let's just get you home," He nods, standing up and reaching his arms underneath your shoulders to lift you up.
It was an odd response. And even more odd was his silence on your entire journey home.
"Well? What the fuck happened?" Tony's voice is far too harsh for your ringing ears as you're slumped in a chair without any intention of having this conversation now.
"It was my fault sir. I should've been more cautious and I wasn't an-" Peter rambles, dropping his hands down to his sides, "And, like I said, it wasn't her,"
"No, don't do that Peter," You break in, shifting in the chair and trying your best to focus on the situation even with the ringing still in your ears, "I said I wanted to help,"
"Neither of you should be getting involved! I told you to stay out of it!" Tony snaps, head flicking between the two of you with an annoyingly fatherly irritation.
"And do what instead? Sit back and let the bad guys take over?" You laugh, "Yeah because I'm sure that's the motto you live by, Tony,"
Peter looks away from you in a moment you wanted him to support.
"I mean, come on! We're not just kids! We're spiderpeople or whatever shit name you want to give us," You let out an anger fueled laugh, "It's not your decision what we can and cannot do,"
"Peter, go home and take that goddamn suit off, I don't want to hear anything like this happening again," Tony waves him off.
Peter stands there for only a second before walking away. You expect him to at least look at you - nothing.
You go to stand up too, hoping to find a moment of prolonged peace away from Tony's fury fueled eyes.
"I didn't say you could go," Tony stops you, his stance relaxing despite his harsh tone, "What were you thinking?"
"Tony, we've been through this," You sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose and sighing.
"No, no," He shakes his head, "I've heard Peter tell me it was him. I want to know why you were even close enough for the Vulture to get to you, hm?" You don't respond, "There are reasons why I want to keep you away from that, (Y/n) and there are reasons why you should listen,"
"When I found you however many years ago, you were just a girl scared of why she could beat all of the older kids at arm wrestling. And why you suddenly ran faster than them and got these weird moments where you felt like some strange sixth sense was controlling you," He sighs, "I promised myself I'd protect you and teach you how to cope with those things that scared you. I did that, I really really tried and I did that. I had to learn how to be like a Dad and I-"
"Do you remember when I got my first period?" You laugh, "You locked me in your stupid basement thing with all of the suits and you bought out an entire shop of everything that could help. You were terrified!"
He chuckles and looks down at his feet, "I thought you'd have bad hormones!"
"How bad did you think they'd be?!" You exclaim and for a moment the two of you have a gentle laughter that settles into a welcome silence.
"I brought you here so you'd have someone other than me. So Peter could learn from you and you from him. I didn't expect you to go against me," Tony mumbles and its one of those statements that lets your heart drop faster than you did to that concrete.
You push yourself to stand up from the chair, "I'm sorry, I am. But I want to help. Just like you do, just like I should do. And Peter is a good guy and we work well together,"
Tony nods and clasps his hands in front of him, a typical businessman gesture that he still hadn't lost.
"But I'll speak to you about it next time, okay?" You clasp his shoulder and you're thankful that he can take a little bit of your weight in your weakened state.
"And tell me before you go on a date with Parker, alright?" He cocks a brow and you hit him with a gentle force.
"I'm leaving now," You say quickly, heading toward your room with intent to get away as quickly as possible.
You're laying on your bed with hope of absorbing as much information on exothermic and endothermic reactions as humanly possible but none of it seems to be working.
Your hand hovered over your phone beside you and you felt as though part of you was physically pulling toward messaging Peter.
'Are you struggling with this as much as I am?!'
You message it with an innocent photo of the spilling papers in front of you.
Okay, maybe you were exaggerating the wait.
'We can do it in the morning x'
You smile at his asssurance - that would probably mean he'd already completed it and he'd help you with the answers tomorrow. It is his next message that surprises you.
'Can you come round? I think we need to talk.'
(I really can't decide if I like this so please, more than ever, let me know your honest thoughts!!)
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