Black as Night | P. Parker

Chapter Twenty-One

"Peter..." Onyx's voice was soft, quiet. A hint of disbelief still ran through her voice.

His hand came up to her cheek and cupped it gently, at first, the dark-haired girl recoiled from his touch but when he stayed still, she eventually let her head fall into his hand.

"Please," Peter said, "come home with me. I'll get Aunt May to make waffles and we can have breakfast for dinner and play more video games."

Onyx turned her green eyes to his and bit her lip. That sounded... perfect. It sounded like the life she had envisioned as a little girl before she had killed her father and sister. It sounded like the kind of life that she knew she didn't have, and thought that she never could have.

After she killed them, she had thought that the possibility of ever having something like that was gone forever, and when she was living on the streets, well, it had made that so much less of a possibility. When she was living just day to day, those kinds of thoughts had only made things harder and so she'd locked them away with the rest of her emotions and thrown away the key.

But now...

Now Peter was offering her just that life, the life that she should have had growing up, the life that she'd once dreamed about. And with that life came Peter himself, she would get to spend as much time with him as she wanted, get to see his smile any time she needed to.

It almost sounded too good to be true.

With a deep breath, Onyx took a step back from Peter. Was it too good to be true? Could she really live that life with Peter and stop killing? It was second nature to her and had been the only good thing in her life for a long time.

"Onyx?" Peter asked.

"Peter, I- I really don't think that I can go with you. I can't promise you I'll stop killing, I can't promise you that. The life that you've offered me, the life that I have lived with you and May has been amazing but to think that we can go on just as it was is, is... It's not plausible," her voice dropped, "I'm sorry."

"No, you're right," Peter said, taking a step towards her again, "we can't go back to the way that things were, not now, not ever, because I know things now that I didn't know before but that doesn't change how I feel about you, Onyx."

"Peter-"

"I'm serious. Okay, so you can't promise that you'll stop killing, that's fine." Onyx looked up at him in surprise. "But can you promise that you'd try? Can you promise that, if I found a way to try and help you that you would go along and do your best?"

Onyx looked down. Could she do that?

After taking a moment and thinking about it, she knew. Looking back up at Peter, she opened her mouth to tell him her answer.

But she never got the chance to. At the same moment, someone behind them dropped to the ground suddenly. Gasps and exclamations sounded as people rushed over to the person and the two teens turned to see what was going on.

Someone yelled out for someone to call 911 and get an ambulance. Onyx furrowed her brow in confusion as something kind of like annoyance surged up inside of her. She was just about to tell Peter and then this happened.

On the other side of the room, another person suddenly collapsed as well. Then there was a third person, a fourth, a fifth. Some kind of pandemic seemed to be sweeping the room and causing mass confusion and panic. A sixth person dropped at the same time someone called out that they're going to need more ambulances when Onyx found the source of the "pandemic".

A head of blood-red hair standing near the door with a malicious smirk on her face.

Hannah.

Turning back to Peter, Onyx locked eyes with him, "Peter, how did you find out that I've killed people?" she asked him, a thought forming in the back of her mind.

"When you didn't show up to class, Gwen got concerned and she told me you weren't there so I went to the only person who knew you well at all," he explained to her. She raised a brow, prompting him to continue, "your friend Hannah."

Of course. Why Onyx had thought that she would be able to get away without facing the wrath of Hannah Benton, she didn't know. But it had been a foolish assumption. As soon as Peter told Hannah that she wasn't there, the redhead would have begun looking for Onyx herself. She knew this and she knew that Hannah wasn't an idiot.

In reality, she was lucky that she had managed this long without being found. There was no way that Hannah was going to let Onyx get away without facing her anger. There was no way that Hannah was going to let Onyx have a nice life and be happy when she was still suffering inside.

Another person dropped, and they would keep dropping until Onyx faced Hannah.

But the longer that all these people stood around and tried to figure out what was going on, the more people would be hurt, or more likely, killed. Onyx turned back to Peter one more time and hoped that she could convey the urgency not only in her words but in her eyes.

"Peter, I need you to go home and get your suit and get these people out of here," she told him. When they locked eyes, Onyx's green irises flicked brown for half a second before returning to normal.

"Suit? What suit? How am I supposed to-"

"Peter, please, I know."

"Know? Know what? Onyx, I don't know what you're talking about, I-"

The dark haired girl took a deep breath to stomp down the frustration growing inside her. Now was really not the time for Peter to play the 'I'm not a superhero what are you talking about that's crazy' game.

"I know that you're Spider-Man, Peter and now is not the time to argue with me about it because the people here are in danger and you need to get them out of the building."

"What danger?" he asked.

"Hannah. She... she's got this ability, and she's using it to hurt people, she always has and if I don't face her, these people are probably going to die."

For a moment, conflict was all Onyx could read on his face.

"But what about you?"

"I'll be fine, Peter, I always am. I need you to be Spider-Man and get these people to safety."

"Okay," he said, nodding his head, "please be safe."

She didn't reply, but watched him run away so he could get home quickly. Onyx took a deep breath and turned to face Hannah. The pair of old friends locked eyes from across the room and the malice on Hannah's face deepened.

Onyx started walking towards Hannah.