I wake up just as the sun starts to come up. I yawn and sit up and realize that I fell asleep in Peter's arms. I smile and crawl out of his arms. He stirs when he doesn't feel my weight under his arms and slowly raises his head.
"Good morning, sunshine." I say to him, and he opens his big brown eyes.
"Gmmorning." He grumbles. He buries his head back into my pillows. I gently sit back down on my bed and pull his head of my pillows.
"How's the arm?" I ask as he opens his eyes again. He flexes his arm and bends his elbow without any evident trouble.
"Good as new." He mumbles, pulling his head out of my hands to lean upwards and plant a soft kiss on my lips.
I quickly pull away from him and pull him upwards, saying, "Get up, sleepy head! I'm leaving soon." He stands up with me and I quickly realize that his torso is still bare. I divert my vision quickly and I head him chuckle.
"Does me not having a shirt on distract you, Gwen?"
"Hmm?"
"Look at me." He says, playfully pulling me closer to him. I chuckle and look him in the eyes. "I need to get going, Peter. I bet they're all waiting for me to wake up."
"I doubt it. The sun's still not completely up yet, every sane person out there is still sound asleep." He replies, but suddenly his face drops. "Aunt May! She probably stayed up all last night waiting for me!" He says. He releases me and pulls the top of his Spidey suit back on and collects his things off my bedroom floor.
I watch him scramble around my room in a hurry, feeling a pang of affection for Peter as he mumbles about how he wish Aunt May would look after her own good and not worry about him too much. He doesn't seem to realize that he really does give everyone something to worry about all the time. He stands near my window with his mask in his hands, waving his hands in my line of vision and waking me from my daze. He opens up the window and blows me a kiss, and just as he puts his first leg out of my window, I run over to that side of the room and pull him back into my room.
"Take care of yourself while I'm gone, okay Peter?" I say, wrapping my arms around his warm waist and resting my head on his well-defined chest.
"Always."
"Seriously, there's going to be no one to patch you up without asking too many questions." I whisper, and he lets out a little laugh and wraps his arms around me, returning my farewell hug. I look up at him and stand on my tiptoes and he quickly leans down and kisses me. I break the kiss and look up at him with a small, worried smile.
"Bye Gwen." He says, releasing me from his arms. He pulls his mask on and hops out of my window, and looks at me one last time before he scuttles up my wall.
I smile wide as I see New York's skyscrapers come into full view from the highway. Home at last. I sigh and lean back into the leather seat of my mother's car as I recall the memories from the past three days that I spent with my family. After a year's worth of exhausting swimming, building sand castles, and lounging poolside, I feel relieved to finally be home with my skin a shade darker and feeling closer to my three brothers and mother.
After another half hour, the car comes to a final spot in our building's parking lot. I step out of the car and stretch my legs and back. I feel my youngest brother's arms incircle my waist and I let out a light laugh. The best thing about this much needed vacation is that I spent some much needed bonding time with my three brothers, who probably felt very neglected. I head to the trunk of the car and grab my bags and follow my family into the building. I hum along to the familiar elevator music, and as soon as the doors slide open, I step out energetically and unlock our house doors.
I relax as I see that everything in the apartment looks exactly how we left it. The thing with living in New York is that you never know when you'll come back home and find all your furniture missing. I walk into my room and dump my suitcases onto the floor and go into the kitchen to retrieve the sandwich my mother promised to make me as soon as we got back home. I sit with my brothers and mom on the couch as we eat our sandwiches and watch some TV together, like a whole family again, occasionally making jokes and recalling something funny we saw during our vacation.
After dinner, I help clean up and head to my room. I reach my room and throw myself down into my comfortably familiar bed. I burry my head in the pillows and smell Peter. Oh crap, Peter! I haven't been calling to check up on him much during my vacation, because he doesn't seem to know when it is and is not appropriate to answer the phone, and he thinks that picking up the phone just because it's cheaper than calling the person back is a perfectly justified reason for answering his phone in the middle of a gun fight. I roll over on my bed and pick up my cellphone and quickly dial up Peter's number.
After a few rings, he picks up. Hoping he's not in the middle of a robbery or something, I say, "Peter? Hey!"
"Gwen!"
"I'm officially back!"
"I missed you."
"So did I."
"I'm dropping by as soon as I'm done here."
"What are you doing?"
"Just trying to stop a guy from blowing up a Seven Eleven."
"WHAT?"
"Everything's perfectly under control Gwen, we got this." I hear a bunch of guns go off in the background.
"Oh great, we got 'em! I'm coming over right now! Bye."
"No wait, go back home and pretend to go to bed so your Aunt May won't stay up all night."
"Oh. Right. I'll be right at your window sill after THAT. Bye, love you." Peter says hurriedly, hanging up on me.
I take a deep breath to calm my nerves and lie back down onto my bed. After I get the image of Peter picking up the phone and casually chatting with me while a crazy suicidal man with a bomb is threatening the lives of everyone in a 5 mile radius out of my head, I roll of my bed and get started on all my extra-credit Spring Break assignments. Just as I finish the first paragraph of the third and final essay I have to write, I hear a knocking on my window that I just now realized I missed during my vacation.
I hop off my seat and open up the window, and Peter comes in clad in his flashy Spidey suit.
"I MISSED YOU!" He whispers loudly, picking me up in his arms and spinning me around the room. I giggle and lock my arms around his neck as he puts me down and kisses me. After a few minutes that seemed like lasted forever, we let go of each other and sit on the floor. We talk about my trip, and the crimes he fought during my absence, and then suddenly Peter stood up.
"I think I should give you the Spiderman Welcome-Back-To-New-York tour."
"Hmm."
"C'mon, we can get fro-yo, my treat."
"How...tempting."
"Gwen" he says exasperatedly. I love teasing him because it's cute when he whines.
"Fine." I say. He grins and puts his mask on. "You ready?" I nod at him and head to the window, and as soon as I open it, Peter scoops me up in his arms and steps out of my room, gently shutting the window behind him.
"Peter put me down!"
"Not a chance," He whispers into my ear, as he flings me on to his back. I hold on to him tightly as he climbs up the wall towards the roof, runs quickly to the ledge, and jumps.