"You got bitten by a spider?!" I overheard Ned, "Pete, you got bitten by a spider?" I pop up next to them, "Are you hurt?" I stop him, "Wha? Oh, spider. Bite. Yeah, nah I killed it, it's fine." He strokes my arms, "Geez, you're that kid that sees a spider in their room, and raises it till it produces thousand and thousands of baby spiders." I shuddered at the thought, "You know I did that once, but it got loose and is somewhere now." Ned looks at me, I stop in my tracks, "I'm never coming to your house ever again." I look at him, "But that was like, psh, five, six years ago, they're all gone now." He waves his hand, "They better have." I continued walking, we looked at Delmar's shop, Deli Grocery, "It's horrible." I look at the burnt shop, after Spiderman went down, it was all over the news, there were some strange weapons the robbers used, it sliced through walls like butter and managed to score through Delmar's store, "And you said we could get sandwiches today." I look up at Peter, "I guess we're going to have to postpone our dinner date," He looks at it, "Wait, are you hurt?" He quickly looks down at me, "Yeah, your house is just there." Ned points up at the apartment blocks right next Delmar's shop, "I'm fine, promise, it was kinda scary though. It almost seared through our first few levels but we were lucky Spiderman stopped it." I smiled at the time we had yesterday, "Wait she doesn't know does she?" Ned looks at Pete, "Knows what?" I narrow my eyes, "Nothing! Nothing." Pete grabs my hands, I was skeptical, "First Peter, now you Ned? Are you guys seriously keeping all these secrets from me?" I say sadly, "No. No. I promise, it's for a valid reason, one day I'll tell you everything but for right now. Please." Peter strokes my hands with his thumb, "This is stupid." I let go of his hands and put in my headphones, "Nat, wait. Please." Pete ran up to me, "Thanks a lot Ned." I heard him over my music, "I'm sorry 'kay. I thought she knew." Ned shrugged.
"Can you spit venom?"
"Can you summon an army of spiders?"
"No Ned.
"How far can you shoot your webs?"
"Don't know, shut up."
"If I was you I'd stand on the edge of a building and just shoot is as far as-"
"Shut up Ned."
I heard snippets of what the boys were saying all day, we had gym class, "Hi, I'm Captain America. Whether you're in the classroom or on the battlefield, today, with the help of my friend, your gym teacher, will be conducting the Captain America fitness challenge." We saw a video of Captain America salute after he monologued, "Thank you Captain America, that guy's now like a war criminal but whatever he cries about his state. Let's go." Our teacher blows his whistle, Station one: Sit ups. Ned and Peter partnered up, I put a weighted sack on my feet and began to do them on my own, "Peter knows Spiderman!" Ned suddenly shouted out, I think they overheard Liz and something about him getting invited to her party tonight, everyone stopped, "No, I don't. I mean." Peter stood up, Flash slid down the vertical rope, "They're friends." Ned nods, "Yeah, like how Coach Wilson and Captain America are friends." Flash scoffs, "I've met him yeah. A couple of times, but it's um, through the Stark Internship. Yeah I'm not really supposed to talk about it." Pete hisses at Ned, "Well that's awesome, you should invite him to Liz's party right." Flash walks over, "Yeah um, I'm having people over tonight, he's more than welcome to come." She nods, "Yeah it's gonna be dope you should invite your personal friend Spiderman." Flash mocks, "It's okay, besides, Peter's way too busy anyways." Liz looks down, "Nah, it'll be fine right Parker?" Flash smirks, Peter looks like he was thinking about it, I stood up and scoffed at him, I walked over to Flash, "What do you want mamacita?" He shakes his arms, I purse my lips and punch him square in the face, "Ooh." Everyone winced, "Sorry, had to let our some anger." I walked off and climbed the rope, I wasn't lying, Peter was really thinking about going to Liz's party and he couldn't even spend a night with me?
I was at home, I looked up at my clock 8:34, "I guess he's having fun." I went back down to my work, "Um, knock knock?" I look at my door, "Your mum kinda let us in. Sorry. I didn't tell you before." I saw Peter and Ned at my door, "Aren't you guys going to Liz's party?" I turn my chair to them, "Well I mean yeah!" Ned bops up and down, "Ned." Peter quietly hisses, "Oh sorry." Ned stopped, "Look, like I mean the rule's kinda plus one but I'm sure we can get by with a plus two?" He walks over to me, "Yeah, I think it'd be a good plan, spend the night at some huge house party while I'm sitting here alone. I think that's a great way to spend my Friday afternoons. And if you'll excuse me I'm heading out to a date." I drop my pencil and grab some money, "Wait, what? With who?" Peter stopped me, "With myself. Seeing I need to also find a new sandwich shop I think I'll need to leave, like now. The new shop's like five blocks away, it'll take some time for me to get there." I take my hand back and grab my keys, "Bye mum, bye dad. Love you. I'm heading out real quick." I pass them as I skip down the stairs, "Bye darling, stay safe." They wave, they were on the couch watching the news, "I promise." I grinned, Ned and Peter following close behind me, "Hey, Nat. Come on. Please." Peter kept pestering me, I plugged in my headphones and opened my Spotify, "You've got premium? Woah, cool!" Ned peers over my shoulder, I press the off button and the screen turns black after I pressed shuffle to start the music, I began a swift jog to the sandwich shop five blocks down.
"Woah. Cool, what is that?" I heard Ned in the textiles room, "Some guy tried to vaporise me with it." I heard Peter, "Vaporise you?!" I run over to him, "Are you hurt, are you okay? I mean don't you ever think that is anything like that happens you run the other way?" I look up at him, Ned and Peter scramble across the table, throwing papers and tools over something, "And now you want to talk to me?" He asks, "Oh you're really going there, do you want me to leave?" I stand up and begin to walk out, "No. No. Look, sorry, Nat. Please, just hear me out. Listen to his carefully, this Saturday night, I'll take you out to that new movie we wanted to watch that came out like two weeks ago and after that, we'll go to that new sandwich shop you went to." He leans over and kisses my cheek, "Sorry. But I've got an academic decathlon to go to in Washington. Don't keep making these empty promises Peter, please." I look down, "Then next week, I promise. Please. I want to spend time with you. Just the two of us." He looks at Ned, he took a step back, "I'll see Peter, I'm not making any promises, just like how you shouldn't either. I thought relationships were meant to be based off truth." I shrug and walked back up the stairs, "I'll text you the details." He shouts after me.
"Pete?" I saw him run over to the bus, "Yeah I was hoping I could rejoin the team." He looks at me, "No. No. You can't just quit then stroll up and assume all is forgiven." Flash walks over, "Hey Peter! Flash, you're back to first alternate." Mr Harrington hops off the bus, "He's taking your place dumbass." I snickered, "Hey can we hurry up, I hoped I could do some light protesting, kinda wanted the embassies before dinner." MJ spoke up, "Protesting is patriotic. Come on, let's get on the bus." Mr Harrington claps his hands, Flash took his yellow blazer off and threw it at Peter angrily, "Good choice, now maybe I think you might be able to fulfil your promises. Next week, Saturday, it's a deal." I kissed Peter's cheek, "Yes!" I heard him whisper to himself. We all piled onto the bus, we were having a mini test, Liz was reading out questions while we rung our bells, "Who is it?" I saw Pete pick up his phone, "I'll be one sec." He stands up, "Can I quickly take this?" He walks to the back of the bus, "Yeah. Fine." Liz looks back at her cards, "Hello?" Pete blocks his other ear.
"Everyone stick together." Liz turns around, "Yeah," Mr Harrington says as we all go to reception to register for our school, "You seem happy." Pete smiles down at me, "Well I mean you're actually finally going somewhere with us. It feels like a century." I held his hand, "Damn it, does that mean you're back together again?" Flash looks at us, "We never broke up." Peter looks at him, "Oh well by the death glares Nat gave you. I kinda assumed. Am I right? Am I right?" He laughs and looks around, everyone was silent, "Shut up Flash." I kick the back of his knees making them buckle. We went to our academic decathlon hotel, there were people everywhere from different schools and states, "What do you mean I stay in the same room as you guys?" I look at the two of them, "There's not enough beds." Ned quickly says, "Dumbass, each room has three beds. Besides, it's not like I've never shared a bed with Pete." I say, "Yeah I know, but still." Peter looks at me, "Whatever." I sling my bag on my shoulder, "And everyone's already got into groups of three..." I puff my cheeks out and sigh, "Guess I'm sleeping in my room alone." I grab my keycard from Mr Harrington, "Hey at least we're neighbours!" Ned looks at our numbers, "Not now, Ned." Peter slaps him lightly, "Well have fun, I'm tired so I'm going to my room," We were walking to our rooms to drop off our luggage, we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted, "Hey! I can still spend now and a few hours with you. We can go out to the mall, the two of us." He pleads, "Nah, I told you it's fine. You guys do whatever you need to do, I'll probably go to sleep, I'm a little tired." I laughed, "But it's like eleven in the morning." He says, "Yeah. And I'm tired." I swipe my card, "See ya." I shut the door behind me, "Nat!" I heard Peter from the other side, "Please open up." He asks, I felt tears drip down, I held my breath so I wouldn't hiccup or take a loud breath in, "No Peter, please. Leave me alone!" I cried out, he stopped knocking, I slammed my hands over my mouth to try and stop myself from crying more, I rolled onto the bed, "What's happened to you Peter after the Stark Internship?" I went to the shower and felt the water run down, I quickly wrapped myself in a towel and went back out, I heard knocking on the window, "What?" I slid the curtains to the side, "WHAT THE HELL PETER!" I screamed.
