Hanging by a Thread 🕷 Peter Parker

eight

Peter

"Peter?"

He stared at his friend through his mask, his eyes wide. How had she figured it out? More to the point, what the heck had she been doing over here? Okay, Peter had this. All he had to do was lie his way out of this.

"Uh... no?" He answered, and then realized how stupid that sounded so he added, "Who's Peter?" He adjusted his voice so it sounded a bit scratchier.

Alexandra looked at him with an expression that clearly said, You've got to be kidding me, right? She wasn't falling for it at all. But Peter wasn't going to give himself away that easily. He cleared his throat. "Is he a friend of yours or something?"

"Peter. Stop it. I know it's you," She said, folding her arms across her chest.

"I don't know who this 'Peter' guy is, but I can assure you that I'm not him." Peter held his arms up.

"Really?" She asked. When Peter nodded, Alexandra pulled her cell phone up and showed him the screen. She had his contact information pulled up and Peter realized what she was doing. Dammit, he had his cell phone with him in case Mr. Stark or May tried to call him! When Alexandra hit the 'call' button, Peter held his breath.

He heard his phone start to ring and Alexandra gave him a look. He laughed a bit and pulled his ringing cell phone out. "Heh, excuse me for a second..." He turned around, holding the phone up to his ear. "Hello?" He answered.

"Peter!" Alexandra snapped.

"Would you believe me if I told you it was a wrong number?" He asked, and Alexandra glared at him. Peter sighed and pulled Alexandra into an ally where he was sure no one could see them. He pulled off his mask, revealing his face. Even though she already seemed to have figured it out, Alexandra still looked shocked when she saw his face under the mask.

"Oh my God..." She murmured.

Peter smiled awkwardly. "Hey..." He said. "So, uh... you'll never believe this, but... I'm Spider-Man," He said. When she didn't respond and just stared at him, Peter glanced away before looking back at her. "So... yep. Woohoo? Hooray?"

Alexandra took a step closer to Peter and then slapped his arm. "I can't believe you!" She exclaimed. "You've been running around Queens getting beat up by criminals for what, a year?!"

"Ow!" He rubbed his arm. "Well, more like ten months—and technically, I'm doing more of the beating up than getting beat up." Except for that one time with the knife and oh man Mr. Stark had been so worked up over that one, there was so much blood—

"You were in a freaking plane crash on the night of Homecoming!" She said, throwing her arms up. Oh, right—and that part. "You could have died, Peter! Oh my God, what if you had died?" She ran a hand through her hair and looked at him.

Peter held his arms up in surrender. "But I'm fine, see?" He gestured to himself and then sighed. "Look, I know this is a lot to take in... so how about this? How about we go back home, where there aren't guys with mechanical arms trying to kill us, and then you can yell at me all you want?" He suggested.

Alexandra looked at him for a moment, contemplating whether or not any of this was a good idea before nodding. Peter smiled and then pulled his mask back over his face. "Cool. Let's go." He offered her his hand.

"You're not gonna swing us home, right?" She asked. "I don't think that's very safe..."

"I'm really good at it, though!" Peter exclaimed. Alexandra shook her head again and Peter sighed. "Well, then how do you want to get back?"