Clessidra | Peter Parker.

4. inner warrior

Time is one of the concepts that men experience every day, but that they still can't manage to comprehend entirely. It slips through their fingers like a light blow of wind and makes them think they can own it, but it easily shows them otherwise. It is infinite, and still men hold the few seconds they have, compared to infinity, as if they have an incomparable importance.

But the one thing they surely can't do, is control it. Or, at least, most of them can't.

June had wondered multiple times where her powers had come from, but there was no way of finding out scientifically without being considered an alien or a monster, and then things would have turned extremely ugly.

"It's supposed to be here."

Peter let June gently land on the fire exit and she moved to the side to leave him some space.

"You should seriously create me a pair of wings. I hate being dragged around by you all the time." That was a lie. She enjoyed it, maybe even a little too much.

"I'll work on it," he said, chuckling. They moved towards a closed window whose light was peeking from the curtains and they both crouched, June slightly raising her head to see what was going on there. She spotted three men sitting around a green table, cigarettes in their mouths and cards in their hands. The whole room was surrounded by plastic bags with a white powder in it, and something told June it wasn't flour.

"Three men. Armed," June informed Peter, noticing the knifes hanging from their belts. Peter nodded and walked in front of her.

"Ok, I'm going in. Follow me only if needed, clear?" he said, pointing a finger at June, who rolled her eyes.

She nodded, even if the situation annoyed her above every extent. While Peter had gained amazing fighting skills, the only thing she was able to do was put people out of danger, but throwing a single punch at someone would have made her end up with a broken wrist. She had always tried to make Peter change his mind about fighting on his own, but he wasn't the problem. He wouldn't have minded fighting alongside her, and she was strong enough to handle a normal fight, but there was no way she could follow Peter's movements.

She couldn't deny the fact that she would have loved to fight and be noticed as much as Peter, but it was a fact: he was a fighter, she was a protector.

"Be careful," she almost whined, squeezing his hand for a moment before Peter forced the window open, sliding inside without a single sound.

June pressed her hands against the concrete wall, her heart pounding like crazy even after all the missions they had went on together. She just couldn't shake the feeling that something could happen to him and she wasn't there to fight.

She couldn't hear anything for a solid minute, until Peter spoke, and the sound of multiple chairs moving along the pavement signaled that the men in the room had noticed him. But, instead of the usual panicked fight that came after realization, the men started talking in a tone that made June's skin shiver in fright.

"What's going on?" she whispered to herself, slightly entering the room only with her ear to understand. The curtains were completely hiding the view of the room from her and, in a desperate attempt to understand what was going on, she swiftly crept in the room, crouching behind the curtains and peeking behind them enough to see what was going on without being noticed.

Peter was cornered by way more men than the three they had seen from outside. They were almost ten, and it had normally never stopped Peter, but things seemed slightly different that time. It was as if something had shocked him to the point where he couldn't even move or speak, and June was about to stop time without even knowing what was going on when the curtains got brutally moved to the side and she got completely exposed.