It goes on like that for a blissful week. That is the time that they manage. She wakes up in the morning to a shrill alarm bell in her ear, her new, unminted phone from Stark Industries buzzing some inane pop song through her silent apartment. Then, she walks to school and finds him at his locker, where she promptly pulls out a toasted bagel and bottle of water from her backpack for him. He's always hungry, that Peter Parker. And they walk together to class. He sits beside her and wonders how she ever got so smart, how he's never seen her so much as crack a book and yet she knows all the right answers, while Lee mutters jokes under her breath as the teachers drone on and on in embarrassing tones about things that she and Peter could discuss in their sleep. They share lunch under a tree in the courtyard and she manages to narrowly avoid the scope of his camera when he tries to covertly sneak a shot here or there. Then, they have afternoon classes that go much the way of the morning.

In the evening, she eats dinner alone. He's always got something that comes up, making excuses that he doesn't know are unnecessary. She is aware that while she's eating Ramen noodles and listening to a playlist she stole from the mainframe of her father's personal computer- yes, she hacked Tony Stark's computer, though, she isn't entirely sure it's so much hacking when it was J.A.R.V.I.S. who freely let her in the system-Peter is out there saving the good people of New York City. She listens to the radio in bed at night as she sifts through the decidedly easy homework, her mind hushed as she listens for any word of Spider-Man or Doctor Banner or her father. And, much like dinner, she spends her nights alone in bed, holding a pillow to her chest just to have something there. In the morning, she wakes with a smile, knowing that she will rise and see Peter for a solid eight hours. It's a cycle that allows her no freedom to think on what it is that she's doing, but if she had the time or the desire, she might realize that being with Peter is the only thing that's making her happy. Sitting beside him in silence is a better time than perhaps she's ever had with another human being ever, and if she were to allow herself the luxury of thinking on that once in a while, it would surely make her more miserable than she could ever dread being. Right now, she's living in a grey area, and that is the way that she likes it.

They are allowed to continue on like that until there is a rumble in the earth of New Mexico. One week and one day, almost to the hour. She's walking into class when her phone rings. Peter furrows his brow.

"Who's calling you? He asks, watching Lee's hand wrestle in her back pocket for the damn thing.

When she finally fishes it out, she recognizes the unnamed phone number currently calling her in the middle of the day. Peter's confusion grows as the bell rings and Lee makes no move to enter their classroom.

"Don't they know you're in school?" Peter asks, walking backwards to class so that he may examine her face more thoroughly.

This last week, for Peter, has been among the most confusing, all-consuming of his short, young life. When it started, he was renewed. Full of hope and resigned to the reality that Lee McCarthy is in his life, whether his rational mind encourages such a thing or not. But, as the week went on and bruises from his evening work began to form, the look he often caught in Lee's unquestioning eyes brought about the storm clouds of a storm of feelings into his world. There is her safety to keep in mind. Don't make the same mistake twice, Gwen had warned him. But then there is this feeling that boils over in him when he waits at his locker to show up with his bagel and water bottle. Something indescribable and altogether addictive. Selfish or not, this feeling that he isn't sure he has a name for isn't something that he can just wash or wish away. Instead, he lives this week in the balance between wanting to hold her in his arms and never let her go and wanting to shove her away and live his life in a hermitage, only to come out in his suit when crimes needed solving. It's a dangerous place to settle in, but settle Peter has. He's living in a grey area, and that is the way he likes it.

He doesn't know, Lee doesn't know, that their week of honest peace is about to come to a screeching turn. And he won't know until long after it has happened.

Lee looks back down at her phone for a hard second. Then, she shrugs at Peter and offers an apologetic smile before slinking down the hallway and shoving her way out onto the front steps. No one is out monitoring today, thank goodness, or she'd end up with a detention slip and that's the last thing she needs right now. She holds the phone to her ear, her heart running a little quicker than usual. The number is Bruce's, and he never calls her for anything but that one time when he called and asked what in the world he should get Betty for her birthday.

"Hello?" She asks.

It isn't altogether surprising to Lee that she doesn't recognize her own voice. It's wracked with nerves and tension and fear that belong to a grown woman, not a teenage girl idling in front of her high school. Someone clears their throat on the other end of the line.

"Ms. Stark?"

Shit. It isn't Bruce at all. It's Nick Fury. Nick Fury is calling her on the phone. Lee swallows hard.

"I actually go by McCarthy, Mr. Fury."

She bites back the urge to call him One Eyed Willie, but shakes the urge from her head and calls him by his proper name when she realizes that that nickname sounds like something her father would say.

"Uh-huh," The director grunts, "There's been an incident. We need you to come down to Stark Industries immediately, if you don't mind."

Lee does mind. She minds a lot. This means no lunch with Peter, this means no sardonic remarks whispered under her breath, this means no camera shy behavior. This means that she has to go to work. But with a heaving sigh, she nods. She's no fan of truancy; she's never missed school for so much as a doctor's appointment. But there is nothing but resolve as she finishes her conversation with the Director.

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

She doesn't even think about how she will explain this away to Peter later.

When she sees it, all she wants to ask is if she can go back to school already. But she doesn't. Her response is much more cutting.

"This is what you dragged me out here for?" She asks instead.

The room of heroes and experts turns to look at her, sitting in a chair at the end of the table, across from the display screen currently depicting their greatest threat. The entire mass of greats is assembled, having previously been briefed by the time she arrived. Steve Rogers. Natasha Romanov. Clint Barton. Tony Stark. Doctor Banner. Darcy Lewis. Jane Foster. Thor. Lee knows that this must be massive to have called Thor and his band of scientists out to New York City from his hiding place in pastoral England. But what she sees looks rather small, all things considered.

"Are you watching what we're watching?" Jane asks, her eyebrows furrowed as she looks from the television to the newcomer.

The simple answer to that condescending question is yes. She is watching the same video they are watching. But it isn't answer enough. Lee isn't sure, but she is almost positive that her father rolls his eyes at the snap made by Thor's ladylove.

What they are, in fact, watching, is a man dimming lights. On a street corner in New Mexico, where apparently all alien activity hovers, a man leans against a lamp post and tilts his hand up and down, up and down, and as he does, the lights flicker. Lee's expression is deadpan.

"In this room, you've got a guy who can control thunder and lightning and a guy who transforms into anyone's worst nightmare, and you're all a little afraid of someone who can flicker lights?" Lee asks, her tone dry and even the slightest bit annoyed.

Darcy Lewis has the audacity to smile at the other girl, a little bit proud that someone in this room seems to share her enthusiasm for poking holes in the remarkably grand theatrics that is the agency of S.H.I.E.L.D., though everyone else in the room bristles and waits for Fury to shut the woman down.

"This is the threat, Ms. Stark-"

"McCarthy-" Lee cuts in easily, her eyes flashing.

Oh, yes, Director Fury knows that she is called McCarthy. He just doesn't give a shit. And therefore, he presses on.

"A man who calls himself the Task Master," Fury finishes.

Lee snorts, unable to help herself. Perhaps it is the fact that her day has been ruined by this little detour, or the knowledge that neither she nor her father will be physically involved in whatever little escapade is being devised by S.H.I.E.L.D. to combat the Taskmaster, but the young woman is just finding it so hard to take anything seriously in this moment of all the important moments of her life.

"And he's giving us two weeks to disband the Avengers and the entirety of S.H.I.E.L.D., or he's personally coming to New York."

It is Natasha that says this, much to the surprise of all settled around the massive conference room table. The Russian is a masterpiece of keeping her emotions tied up in a cool mental corset, tied by strings and whalebone until they are bent out of shape and sight, and one day, Lee vows to herself in a breath of a second, she is going to ask her how she does it.

But she doesn't have time to think on it any further as the various team members step over each other's toes to explain this man, this Task Master, to the young woman. They've all been in briefings for months, demanding that they act and then shaking their heads in grim disappointment when their concern was brushed under the rug by S.H.I.E.L.D. The Taskmaster is an experiment, much like Steve, though this time he is not a pure invention, but rather a copy of a copy of a copy, which creates his specialized talent. He can replicate the powers, the fighting style, of anyone whom he has studied. It's in his blood, it's in his DNA. No, they cannot simply go and find him and stop him before he makes it to New York. He is moving constantly, changing shape at will. They will know he is in New York when he gets here. He will make his presence known, and the waiting will give him time to plan. And that is why it is essential that Peter join the team. He is uncopyable. As far as the Task Master is concerned, this Spider-Man is a ghost. No one can replicate a fighting style they haven't seen.

"Which leaves you two weeks to deliver Parker," Fury finally says with the tone of the end of a long discussion, "You need to pick up the pace, young lady. You aren't getting paid to hang out at the high school."

Two weeks. Two weeks to convince a guy who won't even tell her about his alter-ego that he should take that alter ego and join the proverbial circus.

She looks at her father, who isn't looking at her. Not that there's anything new about that. The table holds its collective breath as Lee stands.

"I can do that," she says with a nod.

Of course, Lee doesn't believe that. Not by a longshot. But she has to do it anyway if she wants what has been promised to her. She doesn't think of Peter now. It is so much easier to think of this as a business transaction and not as her playing a role in a conspiracy to completely and totally alter the course of his entire life.

She detaches herself from the decision and merely nods at Fury, while the room watches in grim silence. They're relying on her for this. They need Peter Parker and they need him to come willingly. Any other way could be disastrous. Fury begins to talk and talk about her objectives and goals, about who she should talk to and when, but Lee isn't listening. Instead, she walks out of the door, leaving his voice and his comrades behind. A walk. That's all. She just needs a walk to clear her head.

She thinks on it...Two weeks. Two weeks to win someone's heart, someone's trust, and then destroy that by betraying them to a cause that will end up getting him killed. Now that she knows Peter, now that the deadline is so tangible and close, it's enough to force her to examine the grey zone she's allowed herself to inhabit.

She isn't even a block out of the building when Doctor Banner catches up with her. Lee has no intention of returning to school today, but Aunt May did say that if she ever needed company, she was always available, so naturally the young woman's feet begin trekking to the Parker household.

"Lee-" Bruce begins in a stern voice.

But the girl in question is not listening to him. She's just walking. Enjoying the day and the things in it. The people on the street and the clouds peeking out from the blue curtain of the sky. Trying not to think about the moral conundrum she's walked herself into.

"I don't like this," Lee finally resolves to say.

There is nothing but the sound of New York City for a while. Neither says anything as they let their feet hit the pavement. Lee doesn't stop to wonder why her father didn't follow after her and Bruce doesn't offer an explanation.

"It's what you signed up for," Bruce finally concedes, "It's a rigged system, but you did put yourself in that system."

He says it with consoling gentleness, his voice like a rub on the back. But there is something in the way his hands shove themselves in his pockets that let Lee know that he is telling a lie. Everyone is lying these days.

"It's the worst, Doctor Banner," Lee says, her entire being a little broken and fragile.

Eyebrows sticking together in confusion, the Doctor spares her a glance from the corner of his eye. He isn't a psychologist, but he has never pushed away someone who needed his help, and he isn't about to start now.

"What is?" He asks.

Lee's stomach is rolling by now. Not from the major terrorist threat hanging over New York City should she fail, but the from knowledge that she's a liar. She thinks back to this last week with Peter, who smiles at her with a tender reservation, who watches her when he thinks she isn't looking. Someone she would have loved in another life. And all she can give him is this shitty hand of cards in a game where the House is stacked.

"Knowing him and having to pretend I don't. I know where he's from and what happened to his parents and what he likes on his sandwiches, but I'm nothing but this walking, talking secret. I'm a lie, Bruce. I know everything about him and I have to pretend that I don't."

The words are spilling out of her before she can stop them. It began when she was making the bagel that first morning. The day before he complained of not having any breakfast and she went to three bodegas to find Everything bagels with onion and chive sour cream, which his file states is his usual when he manages to get down to his favorite Bagel place in Greenwich Village. But she froze just as she was about to pay for it. She wasn't supposed to know about his favorite bagels. So, she put them back and took a cab home, filing away that particular adventure for bottling up and storage somewhere deep in the back of her mind. It isn't until now that she realizes how deeply it affects her, even now.

"Learning about someone from a file is different than learning about them in real life," Bruce counters.

He knows he isn't helping. But he can't help but say something when the young woman can't even keep her chin up for thinking. Lee mulls over Bruce's comment for no longer than a half second before replying. The only proof she needs of this is the photographs that Peter takes. He tells her to hold still and keep laughing and play hopskotch with the kids off of 37th Street, and she finds his camera before the afternoon is out and deletes each and every picture that she finds there. He can't have any evidence that she was here once she is gone.

With a heavy sigh that blows her hair from her face, Lee stares straight ahead and grumbles into the afternoon air.

"Not if you can't give them anything back. Not if you're nothing but a gimmick."

Lee doesn't go to Aunt May's. She doesn't want to make the woman suffer from the company of a liar.

It's five o'clock in the evening when Lee receives a phone call. Her entire body buried under her bed covers, her miserable stomach rolling with dread at what she has to single-mindedly dedicate the next two weeks of her life to, she doesn't even check the caller ID. She merely presses the accept button and opens her mouth to croak out,

"Hello?"

A smiling voice is on the other end of the line, cheerful and ironic considering what she will have to do to that optimism before two weeks are over.

"Lee!"

It's Peter. Groaning to a sitting position, she slides the phone to her ear. In general, they part ways at school and each live their private and separate lives. But now, without even knowing it, Peter is making her job so much easier. He's giving her more time to catch up, to slide in where S.H.I.E.L.D. demands she go. The taste in her mouth goes metallic as she struggles to maintain her cool.

"What's up?" Lee asks, her eyebrows knit.

He's out of breath on the other end of the line, and he sounds like he's struggling with something. She isn't entirely sure what it could actually be until he's midway through his next sentence. There is a knock on her window and she knows what comes next.

"I brought us some dinner. I'm at the fire escape!"

When Lee hears that, she knows that he was frantically trying to pull himself out of his suit before sliding in here. But after that, she feels her heart twitch and shudder. He's on her fire escape. He brought her dinner. And, when she crosses to her window, he is smiling at her through the glass like a real moron. He found her window by shadowing her as Spider-Man. And, not willing to listen to him stumble through an excuse for how he knows where she lives when she has neither told him its location nor brought him to it, Lee just ignores the urge to know for certain. She's a liar and he brought her dinner. The acrid taste of guilt coats her throat as she opens the window.

"What are you doing out there?" Lee asks, her tone slightly accusatory and sharp, a residual effect from stewing over the command of Director Fury too long.

Peter shrugs and offers her a large pizza box. It smells like every pizza she's ever dreamed of, and she knows that Peter has found his way even deeper into that muscle in her chest.

'Thought it'd be quicker," he says with a lopsided smile as he attempts to brush the small raindrops from his hair.

The pizza box finds its way onto Lee's bed and the young woman follows. Just pretend everything is alright. Just pretend this is like any other relationship, like he's just any other guy.

"Did you?" Lee asks, lightening up for the sake of her own sanity.

Peter shakes his head, satisfied with himself and unexpectedly cheerful at the sight of her in pajamas in bed. He sinks down beside her. They both ungracefully begin to eat their dinner as the young woman struggles to fix her mask back in place.

"No, but I thought it'd be a lot more fun," he quips.

Lee nods, unable to hide the smirk that is crawling up her cheeks.

"Now, you're talking, Peter Parker."

They open the box and begin to eat, but Peter cannot let it go. It hangs around him like the stench of rotting meat, the worry that he felt all day when he realized she hadn't stayed at school. It was enough that he broke a tutoring session to come by and see her. She didn't look sick, didn't look ailing. She just looked troubled. And that honestly worried Peter even more. He tries to play it cool, like it's just a conversation starter, something slid in to get things rolling.

"Why'd you leave school?" He bucks up the courage to ask.

Lies are easy now, and so Lee does it here. She doesn't trust herself to say much more than a few sentences.

"I had an emergency come up. Nothing to worry about," she says with a shrug when all she wants to do is to shout at him and tell him to run for his heart if he has any desire to keep it where it is and not ripped to shreds.

Peter nods to his backpack and Lee watches with interest.

"Well, I brought you your homework. If you need any help-" He begins, just trying at politeness.

"Thanks," Lee says.

She doesn't need any of his help. She graduated high school at sixteen and was the darling of all United States Weapons contractors for a while there, not that he knows that. Her pride flares up at that question, but goes back to chewing once she's said her thanks.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Peter returns to the subject a moment later, "I just wanted to come by and see you. I know you mentioned that you live alone-"

Lee gives him a look that could melt steel.

"I'm fine," she says, definitively, but not unkindly, "Thanks for checking in on me."

Though there isn't anything you can do about my misery, she wants to say before settling to bite her tongue.

They eat in comfortable silence for a while before Peter launches into an enthusiastic monologue about what she missed in school that day, and they stay like that for longer than either of them had planned, both ignoring the storm that is brewing just outside.

Well, there you are, folks! I cannot wait to hear what you guys are thinking about this story and this chapter! Please let me know in a review! :) And if anyone is interested in making a graphic or cover for this story, please shoot me a message on tumblr. I would really love one!

AND MAD THANKS for 100 reviews, guys! You have no idea how excited I am!

Also, there has been a few questions (and I'm sure after the introduction of the Task Master, there will be more!) about what universe this story is in, whether it is the 2002 Spider-Man or the TASM, and the truth is that I'm drawing from many Spider-Man canons to create this story, but this story isn't particularly any of them. If I had to chose, I'd say it's an AU from the world of The Amazing Spider-Man with The Avengers and a little bit of the comic books splashed in there!