Notice anything different? Our story cover, perhaps? That is all thanks to Seph Meadowes, the incredibly wonderful and lovely friend who created it! Please go send her love and a million thanks for the lovely cover!
Peter slips out of her room around midnight, his ribs aching from laughing so hard and his mind more content than he can remember it being in quite some time. It's a feeling oddly like happiness, this emotion that wracks him as he slips into the sliver of space between a dark alley wall and a dumpster to change into his suit.
When he arrived in class that afternoon to see that she wasn't there, a million scenarios raced their way through his mind. Terrible fears painted the walls of his imagination, and he wondered what it was that the phone call she received had to do with any of it. Class by class, she did not reappear, forcing him to incessantly tap his foot in his chair during physics as the nerves got the better of him. He resolved to find her, his fear overriding the rational voice in the back of his mind that commanded he try and distance himself for her sake.
He tucks his backpack behind the dumpster and hopes on hope that no one will steal it, knowing that it is most likely a vain wish, but knowing all the same that he cannot very well go off into the night with a bag slung over his costume. But just as he's about to evacuate the area and run off into the night, a figure in the mouth of the alley stops him short. Leather duster, eye patch. This is a man familiar to him. Peter takes a step back, his mask in his hand.
"Peter Parker," Director Fury says, his boots making harsh racket against the pavement as he moves toward the young man.
The muscles in his body tense where only a moment ago they were free and comfortable with contentment, and Peter feels his throat close up in anticipation for what is most certainly coming his way. He had almost managed to forget about the letters from S.H.I.E.L.D. piling up on his desk, in his garbage can. Their language ranged from cautiously warm and nearly threatening, and Peter had thought they would simply give up, forget about him, push him to the side for someone else when they realized he wasn't interested in answering their fanmail, much less join their cause. The Avengers is not the place for him. S.H.I.E.L.D. is not the place for him, and he knows that. He has known that since the first time Director Fury tracked him down while he was walking home from tutoring a freshman months ago, and his stance on the issue hasn't even inched toward Fury's perspective in the months that has passed.
"Director Fury," he says with a rigid, curt nod of his head.
Just when things are starting to right for Peter, just when things are starting to feel manageable, the world has to shudder around him. The appearance of Director Fury is a simple reminder of that fact. The young man doesn't look up at the older one, not wanting to give the man even the dignity of his attention. This conversation is pointless; they are running on a treadmill, expending energy but going nowhere, really. For the briefest of seconds, Peter thinks about Lee, sitting in her apartment alone and he thinks that perhaps he should have stuck around a little longer. Perhaps he and Fury would have missed each other. But no sooner is that thought in his head than does he realize that he has probably been following Peter all evening, canvassing Lee's building until Peter can fall right into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s trap.
"You haven't responded to our inquiries," Fury says.
Nope. He hasn't. And the simple reason is that he isn't interested. Just as he wasn't interested months ago when the offer was first extended to him. But that isn't the main thought in Peter's mind now. Now, he realizes that if they were canvassing Lee's building, staking out there, waiting for Peter, then...They must know about him and Lee. They must know about her. They must know about Lee. That one thought repeats on the broken record in his head. They know about Lee. They know about Lee.
"I don't want to join your team-" Peter snaps, his tone defiant as Fury has ever heard it.
Fury has to struggle back a smirk. Oh, this is working just as he knew it would. Peter's feathers will be ruffled and they'll both play their parts until Fury has done what he's come here to do. Plant a seed in Peter's head that will grow as Lee dances like a shadow around the fence of his life.
"Listen-" Fury says, his voice the scold of an annoyed father.
Peter readdresses his statement, correcting the reality and the truth of it until it is accurate. The grip on his mask tightens until he is white-knuckling his way through this conversation, causing his hands to ache painfully.
"I can't join your team," he adjusts.
Peter takes another step backward, planting his feet into the concrete as though he might grow roots there one day. Wanting nothing more than to end this conversation forever, he steels his eyes and holds his ground.
"And why is that?" Fury asks.
Years of studying prisoner psychology and evasion tactics, the older man knows precisely how to manipulate the young man to anger, to the random, defensive and wild lashing out that is what Fury desperately wants to pull out of him. Peter's next words are little more than a growl.
"I said no," Peter roars, a broken and wild snarl.
He fights for control of himself, struggling to come down after the reckless loss of control. Fury says nothing to the slight, but rather softens and strolls down the alley, letting a puddle of light catch his menacing eye-patched and scarred face.
"You have people you want to protect, Parker?" Fury asks with an upward tilt of his chin.
Like a lawyer, Fury knows to ask only the questions that he knows the answers to. For the first time in this conversation, Peter looks up at the older man, his expression unreadable, if a bit weakened. He has no bark left in him. Knowing that his first question was a stab, he now twists the knife with renewed force.
"You think you can protect them alone? I have the force and the command of the greatest protective agency in the world. You think you can protect them better than I can? You think you have that kind of power?"
Them. That choice of pronoun catches Peter in a vice grip. First, it was just Aunt May. It was a singular person to protect, to keep from harm and danger and all manner of evil that could befall her were he not vigilant. But now, it's more than that. Now, it's them. Now, it's Aunt May and Lee. The easiest answer to Fury's questions is no. He doesn't think he can protect them. But the added exposure of being an Avenger... The more dangerous assailants... The most dangerous assailants the world has ever seen, really. They would take Aunt May and Lee away in a heartbeat. He has no doubt about that. His heart sinks painfully to his feet, watching as Fury becomes quiet in his victory, letting the superior look cut straight through Peter.
"Just think on that, will you? You know where to find me when you change your mind."
And just like that, he slinks into the darkness of the night, leaving Peter alone with nothing but a mask and indecision.
They are sitting in the library the next day when it happens. Studying together is one of their favorite pastimes, both quietly attempting to one up the other with who can finish the equation the fastest or come up with the answer first. It's a silly competition, but they both indulge shamelessly, smirking up at each other as they frantically turn pages and punch numbers into calculators. Lee, of course, goes easy on him, not wanting to give herself away too blatantly. These problems, she could solve in her sleep, so she allows him a few quiet wins and stifles a laugh when he accidentally rips three pages out of the appendix of his English textbook in his attempt to beat her to the answer to question twenty-three. She's watching him desperately chuckle his way through trying to tape the pages back into the spine- a fruitless effort, as they soon learn-when a sentence escapes her lips without so much as asking her permission to do so.
"Do you want to go out with me?"
If the fugitive break of the words surprises her, the speaker, it is nothing compared to the shock that registers in Peter's eyes. At the end of the day, it shouldn't be surprising at all. The pair have spent more of their free moments together lately, grown inseparably close. Any natural next step of this relationship would inevitably lead to them going out together. Peter stammers, unable to draw his thoughts into anything resembling a straight line.
"What?" He finally accomplishes with an embarrassing lack of grace.
Lee tries to downplay the monument that she's just created between them. Looking down at her hands, she shrugs, her voice quiet.
"I was just thinking that maybe we could."
But then...Director Fury's words ring in her ears, echoing loudly across the surround sound in her mind. Only two weeks. She has only two weeks. So little time, really. This is no time at all to be timid. So, drawing her courage up into a manageable package, she lets it drag her lips into a smirk and allows her left eye to raise as she lowers her voice into a teasing entendre.
"I mean, you've already been in my bed," she taunts, "Maybe we could do a real dinner this time."
Peter dumbly repeats the word, unable still to create an intelligent thought.
"Dinner," he says.
She nods, hoping on hope that this is the right move to make. A prayer surfaces in her mind to any god or devil listening... Please let me not have misjudged him. Please let him want this. Please let him want this.
"If that's alright with you," she offers.
It takes Peter a moment to find the power over his tongue and mind once more, but when he does, he a warmth is radiating through his chest, the full force of those eyes she's got forcing everything from his mind but them.
"That would be...Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good," he says.
They're halfway to some restaurant in The East Village when Peter hears something that sends a massive, grey cloud over his night.
"Help! Help!"
The voice is soft and feminine, but shrill and harsh enough to reach his heightened ears four blocks away. His body itches and his backpack- which was, thankfully, not stolen the night he stashed it behind that dumpster- feels heavy as a boulder against his spine, and the suit seems to call him. His steps slow as he attempts to make a decision. Lee doesn't deserve him abandoning her when their first date is only just beginning. She doesn't deserve that. But...But the guilt of the evening...Knowing that he could have helped someone and turned his back on them...It would crush him. Lee, noticing that he's slowed his steps to the point of stopping completely, turns around and furrows her brow, not even having the heart to ask him the question that is on the tip of her tongue. What's wrong? In her heart, maybe she knows the answer to that question or maybe she doesn't know and doesn't even want to know. Either way, Peter rubs the back of his neck with one hand as his other tightens around the strap of his backpack.
"Can you give me a second?" He asks.
No sooner are the words out of his mouth than does he begin taking stinted side steps toward the convenience store door that he's been hovering outside of. Lee's face instantly turns confused, suspicious.
"For what?"
But Peter hardly hears her. He's taking off, now, into the convenience store to find the bathroom. The cries and screams of the woman that he heard earlier are now only growing louder, and they ring in his ears.
"I'll be right back! Wait here!" He shouts over his shoulder.
Lee takes a step to go after him, but instead puts her hands on her hips and shouts.
"Where are you going?" She calls.
The glass door of the shop closes behind him, but Lee can still hear his voice through the thin divider.
"Just a second!"
His image through the glass disappears behind racks of snack foods and 40s, and Lee thinks, for a moment, that she might follow him. That she might go after and see what he is up to. But, instead, she goes to the exposed brick wall of the building and sighs heavily before leaning up against it. This is what she gets for trying to have relationship with her father. Fuck.
Arms folded across her chest and eyes closed in defeat, Lee almost misses the feeling of her phone vibrating in her pocket. Confused, she pushes off of the wall and retrieves the device.
Text Message.
The little icon appears on her screen and she swipes to unlock and reveal the communication, her face woven into a tapestry of confusion and annoyance. Who in the world would be texting her now? The unlisted number heads the new text window and she reads its contents.
Pursue him. Up 1st Ave and over on E5th.
Frantically, Lee's head flips up and she searches her surroundings with sharp eyes and a focused gaze. Who is watching them? Who did S.H.I.E.L.D. send? The streets are empty, the corners bare and no signs of agents are evident. But then, Lee looks up to the buildings. Just there, hovering over the corner of the roof of one of the buildings, she sees a flicker of red hair beneath an all black ensemble. Natasha. They send Natasha. Lee sighs and shakes her head, indecision marring her. She hesitates.
Another vibration from the machine in her hands. She slides the lock screen open.
Fury's orders. Pursue him. Up 1st Ave and over on E5th.
That settles it, then. Grinding her teeth painfully hard, Lee does as she is told. Up 1st Avenue she treads, her feet going a little faster than she's used to, and then turns on East Fifth, wondering what exactly it is that she's supposed to see. No one briefed her on this. No one warned her about this intrusion.
She doesn't have to wonder for long, however. Because the first alley on East Fifth reveals a secret that Lee knew Peter wanted desperately to keep.
Because there, breathing heavily and covered with a light glaze of sweat, Peter sits. But not as she saw him only a few moments ago. No. Because when Peter went into that convenience store, he didn't go in for snacks or an ice cold 40. He went into their bathroom, stuck himself in his suit, and crawled out of the emergency window before following the sound of the screaming woman until it led him here. The altercation was quick and painless and the woman was returning to her belongings, but the adrenaline still wrestles Peter to the ground until he's like this. Crouched on the ground with a suit on is body, though he took the mask off to breathe.
That is how Lee finds him. Dressed as Spider-Man in a dark alley where a crime was just averted.
"Peter?" The young woman asks, quiet, almost reverent.
The boy startles, eyes terrified and his entire body shocked into movement. He scrambles to his feet, his chest still heaving with the exertion of breathing, unsure of how to proceed.
Frozen in space and time, the two young people just stare at each other without reservation, each more unsure than the other of just how to proceed.
The secret is out in the air between them. Well, one of the secrets.
"Uh- So, I'm Spider-Man," Peter finally says.
Lee folds her arms and raises an eyebrow, breathing out a chest full of air that she had trapped down there in shock.
"You don't say."
Well, there you have it! Secret's out! Sort of... Please let me know what you think! I love to hear your thoughts! They mean so much to me!
ALSO! If you guys are interested, I am currently writing three stories in the X-Men universe, and they are called The Ward Four series. The Better Angels (Days of Future Past!Hank McCoy/OC), The Lesser Fool (Alex "Havoc" Summers/OC) and The Average Mind (First Class!Charles/OC, the first chapter of which goes up tomorrow!) are what they're called. Each set in the same psychiatric asylum, these stories follow mutants who have been mistreated or misdiagnosed by the system, and examine the fight for Mutant Rights during the 50's through the 1970's. Anyway, if that sort of thing interests you, please go check them out and let me know what you think! :) They haven't gotten much response yet, so I would love some feedback!
Again, a MASSIVE shoutout and promo to Seph Meadowes, who is the lovely person who created the new story cover! GO send her and her stories some love!
