Black as Night | P. Parker

Chapter Seventeen

Come Monday, things were awkward between Peter and Onyx. After her revelations on Sunday morning, Onyx did her best to avoid talking to Peter. She knew that her relationship with Hannah could never be reconciled, but with the almost ten thousand dollars Onyx had hidden away in her bedroom, she knew she could get far. And the less she knew about Peter, and the less close she was with him, the easier it would be to go.

Peter didn't understand why, after what she'd done for him on Saturday night, Onyx had suddenly shut herself off from him. Why she had taken a complete one-eighty in her interactions with him.

And every time that she turned away from him, all he could see was her sitting on the couch, smiling at him as she held up the video game she had gotten for him. All he could hear as she refused to speak to him, was her words when asked why she had done that for him.

"I think you should always be smiling."

It made Peter wonder what had happened to that girl. Where she had gone and why Onyx had shut her away. He wondered if he'd done something wrong.

So, when they arrived at Midtown High on Monday morning, Peter knew that he had to talk to Onyx. He had to make sure she was okay, that he hadn't done something wrong, or to upset her. That something hadn't happened that was making her like this.

Onyx wasn't expecting anything, so when Peter told Mary-Jane and Gwen to go ahead that morning and asked her to stay behind, it made her wonder. What did Peter want? Would she be able to get away? Why was she asking to speak to her?

"I'm, um, well, I'm worried about you, Onyx," Peter told her as they stood on the sidewalk.

"Why?" she deadpanned.

"Because you were so happy on Saturday, and I thought that maybe... I don't know, I guess I thought that maybe you were starting to be really okay with living with us. And then yesterday everything changed. Did I do something wrong?" he explained to her.

Her stomach dropped and Onyx looked down at the ground, down at her feet. Of course Peter would assume that he had done something wrong. He had no idea about her secret stash of cash, about her plans to run away, about why she would have wanted to do that.

"No, Peter, you did nothing wrong," she told him, looking back up at him.

"Then what happened?" he asked. Onyx looked down again. "Okay, you- you don't have to tell me anything if you aren't comfortable with that or, or if it's not something you can tell me for whatever reason... But, we're good, right?" he asked.

She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. In her mind, Onyx could see his face, his lack of smile and her heart clenched. Why wasn't he smiling? He should be smiling.

Because of you, a voice said in the back of her head and Onyx knew that it was right.

"Yes," she told Peter, forcing a small smile, "we're good."

And there was that smile again. Her heart unclenched and she felt that she could breathe freely again, something that she hadn't known she wasn't able to do. Her forced smile became a real one without her control.

"Okay," Peter said, "then I have to go. I have a test to go to. Wish me luck!"

The boy turned and hurried away towards the door, leaving Onyx standing on the sidewalk and wondering what was happening to her. She stood there, unable to make herself move yet, not really caring that she was going to be late. She needed to catch her breath before she went to class that morning.

As she watched him walk away, there was something oddly familiar about it. A long since forgotten memory being pulled to the surface. "Peter!" she called out, hoping against all hope that she was wrong. He turned back with a goofy smile and Onyx's heart stopped in her chest. "Uh, good luck!" she covered and his smile grew and he turned away once more.

It had been a long time since she thought about her mission to kill Spider-Man. She couldn't complete the mission now, she couldn't very well enact her vengeance against the masked hero now.

And why?

Because Peter Parker was Spider-Man.

That alone was not a big deal. If that was all it was, she could complete her mission and move on because that would make it easier to leave New York. If he was dead, then she didn't have to worry about him losing his smile.

But that wasn't all it was.

It wasn't until that moment that she even realized it. That she even realized why she couldn't kill Spider-Man, why she couldn't kill Peter.

And she knew then that she had to go. She had to run away right then and never come back. At this point, she didn't care that Spider-Man had caused her pain because Peter had caused her something that was so much worse.

The emotions that had begun growing the moment that she stepped inside the Parker home. The ones that she had done her best to stomp down and prevent from growing had betrayed her. They had grown in the bottom of her heart and the back of her mind.

Onyx couldn't kill Spider-Man because Spider-Man was Peter Parker.

And she was in love with Peter Parker.