Intertwine

77 - She Said No

TW

ADITI

I adjusted the backpack on my shoulders, looking hard down the road. The bag was pretty heavy, but I didn't mind.

"Hey!" I jumped as Peter appeared behind me.

"Did you jump down from the building?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Maybe."

I smiled. "Thank you for walking me to school again this morning."

"That's fine. Your uncle said he'd skin me alive if I didn't so." He smiled. "Come on, we don't want to be late. You're still new and everything."

He was right. I'd only been at his school for about a week and a half. His friends were really nice though, but Ned had a habit of trying to get me to talk louder or talk more and I was finding that a bit difficult. There were a lot of people, a lot of emotions, especially in the hallways. But in class people tended to pay attention, it was a school like that, where education was really important to people.

"Guess who turned up on the sofa this morning?" I said as we crossed a road.

"Who?"

"Roara. Bucky kicked her out for making out with that agent."

"The one you don't like much?" He asked.

I nodded. "He makes me feel icky."

"So what's Ro going to do now?" Peter asked, swinging round a street lamp.

"She's staying with us, but she's still really miserable." I sighed. "We're all pitching in to look after her."

Peter blew out a breath. "I hope she'll be okay."

"She will be." I paused. "Guess what else though?"

"Another dream?" He tried.

"Nothing like that." I appreciated that he'd thought of me first. "Nobody's telling me what happened but Alina and Steve had an argument after she found out that Roara had been kicked out by Bucky. She was so angry it woke me up. She went off to have a 'conversation' with him," I said in air quotes, "she took a gun with her and came back later with her face all messed up. I think they had a fight."

"No way!" We both knew we shouldn't be excited about this, but it was so dramatic that there was no other way to be apart from worried, and we didn't want to go there. "Did she feel angry still?"

"No! That's the strangest bit, she felt all excited and happy." I shook my head. "I don't know what's going on with that lot. Clint says it's adult stuff you know, but I'm 17, I'm basically an adult."

"Yeah but I'm glad we're not involved." Peter sighed and pulled his backpack strap up his arm. "It's all intense, you know? I don't want to be caught up in that."

I sighed. "You mean you don't want me to be caught up in that because it might affect me too much, don't you?"

"It's not just that," he pouted, "but yeah maybe partly that. Anyway we got homework and school and stuff to deal with."

"It's not that hard." I was used to my parents pushing me to do really advanced stuff at home, so the work we were doing, while challenging, didn't exactly make my brain hurt.

"That's only because your parents are maniacs who get you to do way too much work." He sighed. "What did you get for lunch today?"

"Are you not getting it from the canteen?" I asked.

Peter shrugged awkwardly and scratched the back of his neck. "May made me extra vegetarian sandwiches because she was worried you wouldn't get any home made food."