Silver Iron

Page 44

"So, listen up..."

I turned to look at my father and glared slightly.

He continued, "I want Spidey to keep his webby hands off of you. I don't want you two hanging out anymore. You've gotten too close."

I felt my eyes subconsciously narrow at him. I sat up completely straight and growled out a simple but powerful, "no."

He didn't say anything at first and then said, "it wasn't a question."

I scoffed and told him, "tell the driver to pull off to the side. We're leaving." Turning to face the front of the car behind me I yelled, "Happy, pullover we're leaving!"

I didn't get a response and it didn't seem like we were slowing down so I took a wild guess that he couldn't hear me.

I turned back around to face my dad and then turned my head so that I could look at Peters' face. He had his lips pulled inwards as he stared down the floor with his head still up right. I cleared my throat quietly and asked Peter, "are you okay Pete?"

He blinked and nodded slowly like his head was replaced with a bowling ball. He didn't lift his eyes to look at me. Instead, he hunched forward and kept his hands intertwined as they fiddled in each others grasp.

I slightly smiled knowing he didn't like having confrontations with my dad, especially when my dad was mad. I looked back at my dad and said, "you may not have asked, however, I don't care. I never asked to be in this car having this discussion with you and-"

"Yet here we are."

"We shouldn't be here, in the first place!"

"If I hadn't let you two meet this wouldn't have happened and-"

"I would have been locked away from everybody my whole life, like one of those stuck up Disney princesses who only care about if they got saved by someone or not? Yeah, no thanks."

Back and forth our verbal battle went as I expressed how he wasn't going to win.

I heard a small voice trying to intervene once or twice while we were arguing but we continued on.

Until we heard "STOP!"

We both quickly became silent as we turned to look at Peter. The boy who had been quietly sitting there listening to the scenario the whole time.

"Just stop fighting, please."

I cleared my throat again and said, "okay." I then looked at my dad and told him, "this discussion is over."

Turning back to face Peter I told him, "come on Pete let's go."

The car halted at presumably a red light and I reached over him to open the car door. My wrist was grabbed and slowly my arm was pushed back to my side. I looked up at Peters' face.

He had his eyes open and he was staring my dad down dully as he said, "fine, you...you win. I'll stay away from her. I'll leave her alone. You just have to promise me one thing."

My eyes widened, they became glossy I felt the tears welling up on my eyelid as my heart dropped.

Peter finished by saying, "promise me you'll let her be free still. That you'll let her hang out with Winona and all of her other friends still. That you'll make sure she can be happy every day. Only then, will I stay away from her and lose all contact with her. All except when she and I have to work together on missions and battles."

I felt my eyes shake as they fought to keep the tears from falling.

My dad's voice rang through my head saying, "I promise."