instantaneous ▲ tasm [SLOW UPDATES.]

o n e ; brother she never wanted

O N E ; BROTHER SHE NEVER WANTED

Life flashes by pretty quickly. One minute, you're a little kid and having to comfort your best friend because his parents just left him behind. And then the next... you're nearly 18 and having to pick him up off the floor because of some stupid high school boys. It happens almost in an instant, it seems. Too fast for you to even realize. When you're a kid, you want to grow up fast and be an adult but when you're nearly an adult, all you want to do is go back to the time when you could take naps and drink juice boxes. While you're wishing you were a grown up, you forget to love being a kid. Pretty ironic, isn't it?

Romina Clarke gave a sigh of exasperation and folded her arms against her chest. She watched in annoyance as Flash Thompson held a boy over his tray and shoved his face in the food. The kids around her were yelling a chorus of "Eat it! Eat it!"

"Come on, Flash, put him down!" Romina yelled over the crowd but her pleas fell on deaf ears.

A moment later, Peter pushed through the crowd.

Peter Parker. Romina's best friend since diapers. That old cliche, she would always roll her eyes and say when someone asked. He was her best friend that she harbored no feelings for other than strictly platonic, she would then have to argue. Well, except for that time when they were seven and his mom made brownies and let Romina have as many as she wanted. In that moment, she would dare say she loved Peter Parker but that was probably a chocolate induced love. A love that dissipated moments later when he told her she had an ugly face.

The two had been inseparable for as long as Romina could remember. Their fathers worked together at Oscorp and their mothers insisted on having play-dates every weekend. They hated each other at first. Romina thought Peter was annoying ("Annoyingly smart," he would taunt). Peter didn't want a girl for a friend. It was one day during one their play-dates, that it all changed. Peter was being picked on by some older boys and Romina stepped in and told them to "shut their ugly, stupid mouths or she would kick them in their nads (her mother later scolded her for her language but praised her for defending her friend)." The boys ran off and Peter thanked her, sincerely. It was the start of a beautiful (and weird) friendship.

They were there for each through everything. When Peter's parents left and were found dead a few days later, Romina was by his side every step of the way. When Romina's father died a year later in a lab accident, Peter held her hand at the funeral and hugged her while she cried. She was the sister he never had and he was the brother she never wanted (this was a joke she made often and Peter would only pity-laugh at), even though she actually had a brother.

"Hey, Parker, come on, get a picture of this!" Flash called out when he saw Peter. He pulled the boy away from the lunch tray and held him in mid-air.

"No, I'm not gonna take a picture of this," Peter retorted. "Put him down, man. Gordon, don't eat it."

"Take the picture, Parker," Flash demanded, smashing Gordon's face in the food once more.