It was at that point when Zara didn't know what she was doing anymore.
She had checked the Hong Kong sanctum and somehow had found a portal to the New York sanctum which landed her right in the middle of a busy street with pissed off notherners slurring together a string of slang terms she did not understand.
And all she had to do was find this "Doctor Strange." And of course she messed it up.
She quickly ran to the sidewalk, reminding herself that flying to safety may not be the best wake up call for early pedestrians. Zara assumed it was about 6:00 in the morning; if Strange was up, he would be suspicious of her arriving at such an hour.
But what has to be done has to be done.
She quickly walked to the building with the sanctum mark and knocked on it a few times, slightly surprised when the heavy wooden doors opened on their own.
Zara quickly looked back to make sure no pedestrians were looking before taking a step inside, the doors quietly closing behind her.
"I could sense your magic from a mile away," a deep voice announced, the bearer of the voice soon floating down from the indoor balcony.
"Doctor Strange?" Zara asked, raising an eyebrow at the man with the goatee and red cape. "I'm Zara Li. I-"
"I understand who you are, Miss Li," Strange continued, now stepping down to the floor and walking up to her. "You attacked the Avengers a while ago, did you not?"
"Erm..."
"And they held you for interrogation once you were detained."
"Well, you see-"
"I had to help detain you, only because our magic is similar."
"Actually,-"
"You have caused a big mess. Do you even remember any of it?"
At this, Zara rebounded. "Excuse me? Don't talk to me as if I am some child, sir. To answer your question, I barely remember any of it, which is probably why I don't remember you. I escaped the tower to come find you, you know?"
Strange just answered with another eyebrow raise and a "hmm," before she continued.
"There's this power... it's always surged inside of me. And I don't know how to control it."
Doctor Strange nodded slowly, and Zara suddenly found them sitting in two seats across from each other.
Zara looked around wide eyed. "How did you-"
"I don't know everything," he interrupted. "I want to hear from your point of view if I can assist you. Start from the beginning."
Zara nodded slowly in agreement and took a deep breath. "Well..."
She was never late to school, and especially not the first day.
If you asked any of her peers if she had ever been late to school, they would have answered with, "Are you in the sound mind?"
Yet there Zara was, running as fast as her legs could take her up the steps of Midtown School of Science and Technology. Sure, she knew she was making a spectacle of herself. Sure, she knew she was 4 minutes and 3 seconds...4 seconds late to first period. Sure, she knew she slammed the doors open way to hard to that class and she definitely knew that everyone was looking at her when her teacher didn't give her a glare but a look of surprise.
"Zara. Are you alright?"
Zara twitched nervously. "Fine, just had difficulties getting here today. Sorry."
The teacher gave her a slight smile before gesturing. "Go ahead and take your seat."
Zara smiled out of relief and gratefulness before sitting next to Flash Gordon, the school's smart douche.
"Hey Zara. You, me, dinner tonight?"
"Alright, we have the basics down," the teacher's voice rang out, continuing the lesson. "Now let's get into the refreshment of plants we talked about last school year. Can someone tell me what plant contains piperidine alkaloids coniine, N-methylconiine, conhydrine, pseudoconhydrine, and gamma-coniceine?"
Zara raised her hand, and with a nod of assurance from her teacher, answered confidently, "Hemlock."
Once her teacher was satisfied with her answer, Zara turned back to Flash and said, "Better watch what's put in your food, then."
Needless to say, Flash didn't bother her for the rest of the class period.
When the bell finally did ring, Zara got up and greeted a few friends before walking briskly down the hall while swerving students to get to her history class.
As per usual (finally), Zara was the first to arrive, picking a window seat towards the middle/front of the class.
"Ah, Miss Li, how lovely to see you. Are you ready for some Modern History?" Mr. Jenkins, the teacher asked.
"As long as you can teach me something I haven't heard on the news," Zara joked, earning a light chuckle from Jenkins.
"I hope so."
Soon the class filled up, and right as the bell rang another boy with brown hair walked in, looking around the class for a seat. Zara noticed one next to her but didn't say anything, as socialising and inviting a stranger to sit next to her wasn't a thing she did.
But it was too late.
The boy, already ignored by the class and the teacher as the room filled with chatter once more, made a beeline for that exact desk before sitting lightly down and hurriedly taking out spare paper.
Out of the corner of her eye, Zara noticed his slightly frantic but frustrated movements when she realised he was looking for something.
Zara averted her gaze when she felt his sheepish one on her face.
"Hey, um...Zara, right?"
Zara looked towards him and the corner of her mouth twitched. "The one and only."
"Can I borrow a pencil? Please."
Zara sighed in mock annoyance but the corner of her mouth twitched up this time. "I suppose."
He gave a crooked grin and she handed him a pencil and he gave his thanks before the lesson began.
After class, when everyone was packing up, he turned to Zara once more.
"I'm Peter, by the way. Peter Parker."
"Nice to meet you Peter," Zara said, smiling back at him.
"And I assume this Peter is Spider-Man?" Strange asked Zara, his hand folded in concentration.
"Yes."
"And when did your troubles start?"
Zara sighed. "Right about now."
Peter had been walking with her to their next class, which happened to be robotics/woodworking/mechanics (everyone called it something different) when she felt a twitching in her hands and stomach and a strange burning in her neck.
Zara stiffened, and it didn't got unnoticed by Peter.
"Hey, are you okay?" he asked, worry lacing in his voice.
"Dandy," she replied. Zara clutched her stomach in sudden pain. "Lemme just...Excuse me, I need to use the restroom."
Ignoring Peter at that point, Zara bolted for the nearest Ladie's Room and locked herself in the handicap stall where she scrambled to the mirror and observed her reflection.
She had gotten noticeably paler as if she was sick, but she wasn't, so she didn't know why this was happening. Zara had been late to school today because she woke up in chills and cold sweat, without any will to get out of bed before she realised it was too late and she had ignored her alarm.
Zara focused back in at her reflection when she noticed that she had been clutching the sink handle, and the metal had bended and molded from her grasp.
"What the he-"
Without warning, something shot from her palm, and she looked down in alarm to see some black and purple swirly stuff floating from her hand. Like...black matter.
"Oh no."
"So that was the first time it happened," Doctor Strange asked, carefully observing Zara.
"Yes," she replied. "And it only got worse."
Zara ignored everyone for the rest of the day, including her friends and her boyfriend. In fact, he broke up with her that very day. He claimed how she had not talked to him much over the summer and that now she had ignored him at school, and that he had found someone else anyway and that she was never good enough and that she was this and that she was that and yada yada yada. Zara stood there whilst he yelled at her in public, taking it and not letting her emotions sway in case of an accident with her newfound abilities that scared her to death.
When she got home that night, she ignored her mother and went straight to her bedroom, ignoring her older sister as well. She barely ate much for supper and ended up lying in her bed, staring at the ceiling for a good amount of time, when she heard a tap on her window.
Zara surprised herself when she suddenly bolted up, flying to the window in a mili-wait a second, flying?! Zara thanked that she was a calm and orderly person, or she would not be taking this well at all.
Staring at the night sky and the lights down below from the apartment, nothing came to view until a dark flash flew across the window. Zara's eyes strained to follow it until she couldn't anymore, so she decided to put on some dark jeans, a black hoodie (with the hood up) and follow the thing using her newfound flight abilities.
As soon as she opened the window, she breathed in the cool air, a good kind of chill spreading through her lungs.
"Here we go," Zara muttered to herself before leaping off the ledge.
"You must be a bold character," Doctor Strange remarked.
"I had nothing left to lose," Zara admitted. "I didn't know what I was doing. Using my powers was my only option."
"Hm," Strange sounded. "Continue."
Zara smiled and laughed slightly at the feeling of the wind flowing around her and with her, before she realised she was supposed to be following the dark object.
"Only problem is you lost the thing, Li," Zara chastised herself. "Good job."
Suddenly feeling a little tired, Zara perched atop the roof to an apartment, although she didn't land all too gracefully and hoped she didn't wake the people underneath.
Her almond shaped eyes looked around the sleeping city, wearing of any sudden movements, but for a while, nothing came.
However, a new noise did.
Zara glanced down when she heard the sound of a window opening and closing shut, along with the slight pad-pad of someone...scaling the walls?
Zara backed up and engulfed herself in the shadows of a generator, still discovering her new powers when the person appeared on the roof, wearing a blue, red, and black suit.
"Spider-Man?" she whispered to herself, but cursed mentally when she saw his head turn slightly to the side. Of course. He must have an acute sense of hearing. However, she let out a sigh of relief when his head turned back forward, still observing the city below him.
Soon enough, he stood up, stretched slightly, and slung a web to the building across, disappearing into the night.
"Huh," Zara remarked, before stepping out of the shadows, only to be thrown forward a bit more.
"So someone was spying on me," a new voice said, which sounded oddly familiar.
In order to conceal her face, Zara pulled down the hood a bit more and didn't turn around all the way, but let her peripheral vision observe the new voice to be coming from Spider-Man.
"Perhaps," she replied, her voice coming out in a whisper.
"Care to tell me what a civilian is doing up here this late at night?"
"Not really," she admitted in truth. Zara suddenly felt alarmed at the Black matter toying in between her fingertips.
Not now, she thought.
"What're you doing?" Spider-Man asked, caution and slight alarm filling his voice. "Your hand...I wouldn't play around like this if I were you."
Zara turned around, glad that is was dark and he couldn't see her face all that well.
"Sorry."
Without thinking, she lifted her hand and blasted him off the roof with the black matter, knowing full well he'd be back within a second.
Zara took off and flew to another building, just anywhere to get away from where she was.
But almost, like she wasn't controlling it, another blast of dark matter shot from her hand and destroyed the windows of an empty office building.
"Oh c'mon-"
Another blast interrupted her when dark matter shot straight for a car, wrapping it and weaving through it until it squeezed the metal into a lump and the car caught on fire, triggering alarms as the car was thrown against other parked cars.
"Shit," Zara cussed, touching down on the nearest building as blast after blast began to destroy the things around her, Zara not willing any of this to happen.
She suddenly felt something wrap around her hands, and she whipped around to face Spider-Man, but before he could say anything, the black matter melted the webs away, and moved to Spider-Man's web-shooters, quickly dissolving then also.
"How-" Spider-Man gasped, before Zara kicked him back against the wall on the other side of the roof.
She heard him making a frantic call of some sort to a "Mr. Stark" and something about "enhanced." Zara panicked and prepared to fly away when she felt fingers wrap around her ankle and pull her back.
She twisted around, stood up, and took a swing at Spider-Man's face, before he blocked it and kicked her in the shoulder, causing her to fly back.
Spider-Man's shoulders slumped. "Oh gosh, I'm sorry-"
But Zara already had landed a punch on his jaw, and he groaned before swinging, back, hard, and Zara could feel the blood trickle down the side of her face.
"No, I'm sorry," she whispered, and allowed the black matter to flow through her and destroy the rock of the wall around them to entrap Spider-Man.
"So long," Zara said, before flying as fast as she could back to her apartment.
"All of that was the uncontrollable dark matter?" Strange asked.
"Mostly," Zara replied. "I also defended myself too. I didn't want to lose the fight to Spider-Man or else I would have been revealed."
"Doesn't seem to matter now, does it?" Doctor Strange asked, sarcastically.
"You're right," Zara grumbled. "Anyway..."
Getting up was hell.
Her ribs hurt from being kicked, and the scratch and bruise on the side of her face didn't looks too good either. She could manage to sneak out of the house without her mother or sister noticing the marks, but the students? Zara just figured she'd cover the scratch with a large bandaid and hope they didn't ask about the bruise.
No such luck.
People acted like she had some kind of illness and fussed over her, asking her to tell them her sob story (which was that she was mugged) or asking her if they could do anything. And there was only one person not acting like this.
Peter.
Zara noticed something off from the start. He came into history with his usual greeting smile but as soon as his eyes landed on her face, it melted away into one of confusion automatically masked by a mixture of fake and real concern.
Even when they did a review on the Sokovia Accords, she could tell he wasn't paying attention, and could feel the stolen glances her way ever so often.
So at the end of class, she finally had to ask him.
"Peter, are you okay?" Zara asked, her eyebrows furrowing in concern as she packed her notebook away.
"I mean, are you okay Zara?" he asked. "You look like you've been through some ordeal, I don't know-"
"You didn't answer my question, Peter," Zara replied. That's when she noticed the faint mark of a bruise covered by makeup on his face also. "Wait a second, I see a bruise on your face too-"
"Gotta run," Peter said quickly while thinking, saved by the bell. Students filed out as he gave her a quick wave. "Have to drop something off before robotics. See you later, Zara."
"So our Mr. Parker noticed something from the start," Doctor Strange speculated.
"Definitely," Zara replied. "I suppose I just didn't notice until it was too late."