Intertwine

80 - Just Massive Spiderman Fans

ADITI

I waited patiently outside of Peter's apartment, the small box in my hand. It was August 10th, four days until the mission and Peter's birthday.

Aunt May opened the door. "Hi Aditi, Peter's not up yet, but come on in Ned's already here." She grinned at me.

I came in and took my shoes off by the door. "Thank you so much for inviting me Mrs Parker."

"I've said, call me May, please." She suddenly looked concerned and touched my face carefully. "Why do you have bruises on your cheek? Is everything alright at school?" She asked.

"Oh," I touched my cheek, "oh no it's fine." I'd messed up a move in training the day before and not dodged Clint's punch properly. He'd got me smack bang in the face. It had really, really hurt.

"Are you sure?" She put her hands on her hips. She looked just like Mama, standing there like that. I suddenly felt more homesick than I had done in a while.

"Yeah, I just messed up with some..." I paused. She knew about Peter being Spiderman. She also knew about who I was. "Some training with my uncle. I didn't doge properly."

She tutted. "Be more careful, okay? Your poor face, I'll get some cream for it." She led me into the apartment, where Ned was sitting on the sofa. "I'll be right back." May told me, going into the bathroom.

"Hi Ned." I said sitting down beside him.

"You said hi to me!" His smile was completely infectious.

I nodded.

He punched the air happily. I shook my head, still smiling. I was finding it easier to open up to Ned, with some encouragement from Peter. He was a really sweet person, and although it always took me time to come out of my shell, I was actually finding it easier to make friends now. It wasn't that I wasn't confident, many ways I was, but the more I was able to block out emotions the less I was finding it worrying to speak. Every time someone in school shouted at me something like 'hey look it's fight girl' Ned would say 'she can fight you!' and they normally backed off.

"Here you go." May bent down and carefully applied some cream to my face.

"Thank you. You didn't have to." I blushed.

"Don't be silly, it's no problem." She smiled and went into the kitchen.

"I'm going to go and see if Peter's up yet." Ned said, getting off the sofa, leaving his present on his seat. It was a really big box and I guessed it was a Lego set.

After a few minutes of hearing nothing, I wandered down the hall and waited outside Peters door. When I couldn't hear anything I pushed open the door.

Peter was in his boxers and pizza T-shirt, holding his Spiderman suit in his hands. His hair was tousled, with marks from his pillow across his cheek. I'm going to say it, he looked cute. Ned turned around to face me, the Spiderman mask over his head.

I shut the door silently behind me, nearly paralysed with shock.

"We're just massive Spiderman fans!" Ned blurted out.

"He knows!" I pointed at Ned, gaping at Peter.

"Wait, she knows?!" Ned pointed at me with one hand, pulling the Spiderman mask off with the other.

"Yes Ned, she knows." Peter sighed and threw his suit down onto his bed.

"NED KNOWS?!" I shouted, still in complete shock. Ned looked as though I'd just shouted at him through a megaphone, he'd never heard me raise my voice before.