The Dark Archer

Chapter 7

Peter POV

As nervous as I was about Kylie testing out her powers in public, she seemed ecstatic about the prospect of it. I personally thought that she was insane.

We walked back to Kylie's apartment—well, I walked, Kylie skipped. I had to suppress a chuckle at her silliness. She was always so upbeat and happy, never failing to pull me out of my darkest moods.

Kylie had to sneak back in through her window so she could formally leave with me to go to Central Park. While she climbed the fire escape, I walked into her building and rode the elevator up to her floor. I navigated my way to her familiar apartment and waited for her to text me that she was ready for me.

I heard my phone ding, and upon checking that it was Kylie, knocked calmly on her apartment door. I heard footsteps on the other side of the door before it opened a crack to reveal Mrs. Barton in a bathrobe. She smiled cheerily at me and swung the door open wide.

"Hey there Peter! It's so nice to see you again!" Mrs. Barton said, pulling me into a bone-crushing hug.

I struggled to take in a breath and reply, "It's nice to see you too, Mrs. B. I'm supposed to be going to the park with Kylie."

She released me and I sucked in breaths greedily. She laughed at my dramatic spluttering.

"I've told you a billion times, Peter—call me Laura."

"Whatever you say, Mrs—I mean Laura."

Laura Barton smiled at me and directed me to Kylie's room, where I knew she was waiting patiently. I politely knocked on her door for Mrs. B's benefit.

Kylie opened her door for me and I nearly gasped at how beautiful she looked. Not that she didn't look nice every day, but something about her appearance now struck me more than it ever had before.

In the time I'd been gone, she'd changed into shorts and a tank top and re-braided her hair. It wasn't like she was even looking her best, and somehow I found myself unable to look away.

She frowned at what must have been my strange facial expression.

"What's wrong? Do I have something on my face?" Kylie asked self consciously. I shook my head to pull myself out of my daze and smiled at her.

"Sorry, I just zoned out for a minute and randomly started thinking about having 'the talk' with Aunt May," I lied and Kylie giggled at me. Yeah that was cringey...

"I can imagine," she agreed. "We ready to go?"

"Yeah, we better get going before too many people get there," I suggested.

We walked back through her apartment to the front door.

"Bye, Mom, we're leaving now!" Kylie shouted.

"Bye Mrs. B!" I yelled quickly.

I rushed Kylie out the door to the sound of her mother scolding me good-naturedly.

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Soon enough we had arrived in New York City's Central Park. It was one of the few places where you could find any trace of nature in the city.

We stopped in an unpopulated area to get started. Kylie set down her bag that was probably full of stuff—both useful and not.

There were so many different aspects of her power that had yet to be tested. Could she look at a picture of something and manage to hit it using her powers? Could she time when whatever she threw landed? Could she control whether the projectile teleports or just flies through the air in a roundabout way?