Babysitting a Superhero (Stark's daughter X Peter Parker)

14. Descent Into Guilt

Love Of My Life - Harry Styles

Take a walk on Sunday through the afternoon
We can always find something for us to do
We don't really like what's on the news,
But it's on all the time

It had been about a month since Amara had informed her father of Spiderman's identity. Cooper Lila and Nathaniel went home with Laura and Clint decided to go home with them. He said he'd be here if we needed him. Amara hadn't got the chance to talk things out with Cooper because he had been avoiding her since she turned him down, so she still felt pretty guilty about that. Jane decided to stay in New York, though. She said that she wanted to find an office in New York, like a base for her research lab. Even with all of these things happening, Amara still couldn't help the growing guilt she was experiencing in lying to Peter Parker.

He was, after all, a sweet and caring guy who seemed to trust her, whether he met her as Spiderman or Peter Parker.

Their patrol together was going pretty well too, he finally trusted Aura almost as much as he trusted Amara. For some reason, he found a teenage girl more trustworthy than an actual superhero. Which was odd seeing as "Amara" hadn't seen Spiderman since the incident in the alley, a month ago. But that was partly because Amara hadn't felt the need to go to Queens unless she was going on patrol as Aura.

Not only did she feel bad about lying to Peter, but she also felt awful for lying to MJ and Ned as well. They had all become her best friends and she felt like a horrible manipulative bitch keeping everything from them.

But as much as Amara wanted to tell them the truth, she knew that it could jeopardise everything. So she continues working on homework, complaining about teachers and helping to bring Peter and Liz together - regular teenage stuff.

Today was especially different, though; Amara could feel it before she even got to school that morning - something good was gonna happen today.

So she spent the day waiting and waiting and waiting until she was just about to doubt herself. Maybe my powers are just acting up.

That was until MJ came up to Amara in her last period and asked, "Hey, do you wanna come over to mine for a sleepover this Friday? It's nothing special, my mom just wants to meet you, don't ask me why, I won't tell you."

As soon as MJ said this, Amara's face lit up, because no matter how hard she has been trying to hide it, she actually was excited by the prospect of some normal things, a sleepover at a friend's house being one of them. And while this might not seem like that much of a big deal to warrant a feeling, to Amara, it was a huge deal, considering she had spent her entire life with friends that already live with her.

"Yeah! Sure! After school?"

"Yeah. Is that okay?"

"That's awesome."

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When Amara got out of school that day, she waited for Peter to show up at the bench just outside of the school gate where they usually waited for each other to walk to the subway station. She only had to wait a few minutes, though; not because Peter arrived, but because Amara had received a message from him saying that he was staying at the school library to study after school.

He quickly followed the message up with, "Don't worry about me, I'm picking up a few books that's all." Which Amara, just as quickly, translated to, "I'm starting my Spiderman patrol early today, so I can't come on the subway with you." And Amara was totally fine with that, so she got up and started walking in the direction of the station.