Adventures in Babysitting ↠ Peter Parker [1] ✓

16 | Nightmarish Nostalgia

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ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING
xvi. NIGHTMARISH NOSTALGIA

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  NOSTALGIA IS ONE OF the most powerful and underrated forces of nature there is. Nostalgia has this ability to overcome us as individuals and momentarily hold us hostage to our own minds. How is it possible that our minds can result in being our strongest foes? Shouldn't our minds be the ones protecting us rather than harming us?

   Riley O'Dair was the prisoner to a habit. It was an addiction—one that was so innocent and simple that you'd think that it would never do any harm. Personally, Riley was convinced that it wasn't a harmful habit whatsoever. After all, what was so bad about looking at a picture?

   Sitting on the rooftop of some building, which was something she found herself doing regularly when she was on her rounds, she allowed her legs to swing back and forth. Dressed in her Valor suit, she stared down at an old photo in her hands. She never went anywhere without it. It was an image of a smiling man and woman holding a baby. This was Rob and Athena O'Dair. And the baby? That was Riley.

   Riley often wondered what her parents were like. She had heard things about them being these incredible scientists, but she wanted to know what they were like as people. She wanted to know how their mornings went and what they did for fun. She wanted to know what it was like when they found out Athena was pregnant with Riley. However, Riley was restrained to looking at an image of her parents, left to wonder what they could have been had Riley not murdered them.

   Clenching her fists, Riley had to take in a deep breath. She hated when her mind reminded her of what she had done. It was an accident, she would tell herself. You were a child, she would remind herself. But nonetheless, once the feeling of peace drifted away, Riley always felt the unsettling mixture of nostalgia and guilt.

   Whenever she was feeling down, she would always pull out a particular photograph she had of her and her biological parents. In a strange sense, it brought her peace. The nostalgia that came with observing the image was always so powerful that it was able to pull her out of reality for just a few moments.

   Sometimes it was nice; being able to just forget about the twisted world around her was nice sometimes. The world was quickly becoming a dark and dangerous place to live in. By looking at the simple photograph, she could forget this for a little while. However, sometimes, being stuck in your mind where things were seemingly nice and beautiful could be a bad thing. For example, had Riley not snapped out of it sooner, she would have missed the group of blurry figures moving about inside a nearby bank. She was unsure as to what exciting event was occurring inside the bank.

   "JO, can you zoom me in?" Riley requested.

  Suddenly, without warning, Mr. Delmar's sandwich shop was lit with fire. Orange and red flames ate at the building, growing in a matter of seconds.

   As Valor approached the scene, she managed to spot Spider-Man's bright red and blue suit. He had been running off after handing a cat to Mr. Delmar, but Riley shouting, "Wait up!" seemed to grasp his attention nicely.

   Peter spun around quickly, noticing her almost immediately. "What the hell just happened!?" demanded Riley.

   Although Peter was still upset with her, his mind had still been racing. He had absolutely no idea what he had just witnessed inside that bank and he needed to tell someone about it.

   "These guys were robbing an ATM!" Peter exclaimed. "With... With these high-tech weapons, and it was insane! One of them literally defied gravity, and now the bank is destroyed and Mr. Delmar's shop is on fire and—" Peter paused. "I almost forgot I'm not talking to you."

   Riley scoffed. "Seriously? After all that," she motioned toward the bank and the sandwich shop, "you're still not gonna talk to me?"

   "No," decided Peter. "I'm going to talk to Tony."

   Riley narrowed her eyes at him. "You mean you're gonna talk to Happy."

   "Same thing!" Peter exclaimed. "You should just go, Riley."

   "Peter, this is serious. If you got hurt when I was literally right there..." She paused, looking down slightly. She would never forgive herself if that happened. Riley looked back at Peter. "Promise me you'll contact me if something like this happens again."

   "I don't owe you anything, Riley—"

   "Please?"

   Peter was silent for a moment. He couldn't quite figure out why Riley had been so stuck on his safety. After all, she didn't care about him. She only pretended to because Tony Stark told her to. Riley didn't care about Peter as far as Peter was concerned.

   "Okay," Peter unwillingly replied. Nodding, Riley turned on her heel and walked away without saying another word.

   Still, he couldn't help but be confused as to why she was still pretending she cared about his well-being. It perplexed him, to say the least.

   His eyes fell on something that wandered out of Valor's pocket. He kneeled down and picked it up. He dusted off the item before observing it. It was a picture of a man, a woman, and a baby.

   Peter almost smiled at the sight. It was so obvious that the baby was Riley, and it was even more obvious that the parents were Riley's.

   He thought back to what she said about her parents not too long ago: "My parents died when I was two." He had been so caught up in believing that everything she had said was a lie, that he hadn't even begun to consider the idea of her telling the truth. Their entire friendship couldn't have been a complete lie, right?

   He shook his head, still staring at the photograph Riley had dropped. Maybe he was just being a little too optimistic for once.

   After all, Peter Parker had no idea who Riley O'Dair truly was.