𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐓, p. parker

vii. sick days

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ sᴇᴠᴇɴ ── sɪᴄᴋ ᴅᴀʏs

"DO YOU WANT me to come over?"

"No. I'm fine and you need to rest."

"You know I'm always here when you need me, right?"

Gwen let out a sigh from the other end of the call. "I know, but I need to be by myself right now."

"Are you sure?" Frankie double checked knowing that if there's any time her friend needs support, it's now. "I don't mind."

"Yes," Gwen said again. "I need to go and you need to rest."

"Okay, love you."

Frankie let out a sigh as she placed her phone down, wrapping the blanket tighter around herself. Of course it's totally on brand for her to get sick a week after helping save the city from a giant lizard who wants to turn everyone to lizards.

With a sigh, Frankie pulled herself up, knowing that Bella hasn't yet eaten breakfast and what else can pull her out of her depression hole if it isn't feeding her dog. Padding through the kitchen, she almost immediately regrets her choice as her mother sat by the kitchen counter, files and files of cases laid out before her.

At times like these, Frankie is reminded how beautiful her mother is. Though she and Stephen got their blue eyes from their father, the brown hair and freckles came from their mother. Melissa Strange looks beautiful with the sun on her eyes, looking like pools of honey under her reading glasses. She holds a certain elegance to her that Frankie had spent her life trying to imitate but never truly can.

But there's a certain type of coldness to her. She sits too stiff, back straight. Her face, no matter how beautiful, remains closed off and unwelcoming. She has an uncanny ability to make everyone around her feel small, stripping off their self confidence with every cold glare. Frankie, despite being her daughter, feels no different. Anytime someone would ask, she'd describe being Melissa Strange's daughter as feeling as though you're always in an interview, always being judged for every tiny movement, always fearing a small mistake may have cost you your shot.

Almost like a dementor, Frankie can immediately feel herself getting smaller as she enters the kitchen, head bowed as she grabbed Bella's bowl.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" Melissa asked, tone nonchalant as she continued to read her files.

"I'm not really feeling well," she said, voice low.

Melissa let out a hum, her eyebrow raising as she looked up from the file she had been reading then her daughter. "You look fine to me."

"I have a fever."

"If your brother skipped school everytime he didn't feel well, he wouldn't have graduated as valedictorian."

Frankie felt her heart drop. It was such a simple statement, one she's heard so many times growing up and yet somehow it doesn't get any less painful throughout the years. Each time, it still feels like a punch in the gut.

Giving Bella her food, Frankie headed back to her room, trying to stop her tears and her head spinning as she changed out of her pajamas and shoved her homework inside her bag, ignoring her mother as she passed by him to the door.

_._._

FRANKIE WAS NOT supposed to be at school.

Peter had already made promises to see her after classes with soup and medicine after spending the night in her room and seeing the state she was in and so it was his surprise when second period came in and she's in her usual seat, head down and her body shaking from the chill.