A/N: I know I said I would make a new FanFiction in the last chapter but I kinda got distracted. Sorry at how late this update is, my excuse is I've fallen in love with Detroit Become Human and now I'm in love with Markus and Conner, they are my sons.
Anyway, what's going on in this chapter? Honestly, not much. Adara is worried as heck for Peter and her mental health is not improving anytime soon. We also have a chat with Norman, which is a little weird. Then, some stuff that happens in the movie and then some other stuff. Exciting stuff.
I just want to say that I won't be replying to any reviews or writing a thanks note in this one, even though I want to. I'm just a little busy at the moment and wanted to get this chapter as soon as possible. I will edit this chapter when I have the time so I can thank everyone for over 500 reviews, because that's just amazing.
Once again, I am super, duper sorry!
Reminder: In the last chapter, we saw our first Spiderbell team up, which was fun. And then Peter got dropped into a lake, which was less fun. Some other stuff happened too, also I'm in love with Detroit Become Human. WHOopS that's not relevant.
"I'm scared
I've never fallen from quite this high
Falling into your ocean eyes"
Adara skidded to a halt at the edge of the bank, barely managing to stop herself in time as she watched Peter plunged straight into the river, his parachute restricting his movements and pulling him down. He was too far away, Adara could swim but there was no chance she would reach him time.
Please resurface, he had to resurface!
But he didn't, and there was no Iron Man to save him this time.
"No, no, no," she muttered, "Pete- Peter, please."
Someone touched her shoulder, she swiveled around to see him standing behind her. He was holding his mask in one hand, it was dripping wet, so was the rest of his suit. His hair was stuck to his face, causing cold, dirty, river water to run down his face. His expression was icy as he looked at her blankly.
She breathed a sigh of relief, "thank God you're okay," she said, "how did you get out of the water?"
He stared at her for a few seconds, before grabbing her wrists and pulling her towards him, so close that their faces were touching. "Why didn't you save me, Dara?" His voice was haunting, "you could have saved me, why didn't you?"
"I-I couldn't," she attempted to wrench herself from his grasp, but he was too strong, "you were too far, I would've never made it in time."
"So weak," his laugh was cold.
"But you're okay, you're here," she said, trying to convince herself more than him, "you're here, in front of me."
"Am I?" He said and, without warning, Adara was pushed backwards, over the edge and into the ice cold lake.
The black water closed in around her, the temperature and the force hitting her took her breath away and she struggled to pull herself to the surface. Something, or someone, was dragging her down, she kicked wildly, despeartely trying to reach the surface.
"Stop fighting it," said a voice, that damn voice, "you can't save him, you can't save any of them. Least of all, yourself. Don't play the superhero with me."
She turned to look at Luka, who she was certain was the source of the voice, but saw nothing but more of the dark water swirling and churning around her.
"Just give up."
She fought to reach the surface, "no!" But it just came out as bubbles, no sound came here, she was too deep down.
"Give up."
Her limbs were getting heavy, her lungs were at bursting point, her eyes were filled with so much water that she could hardly make out anything in the darkness. Don't give up, don't give up! But she could already feel her body falling into unconscious. Keep fighting, she had to keep fighting. She was a hero, she could be a hero.
"Stop lying to yourself."
Reach the surface, she kicked and kicked and kicked, forcing her body to work against the currents that were dragging it down.
"Give up."
She couldn't breathe, she couldn't see. Where was the surface? Where was the air?
"You can't save yourself."
"You can't save him."
Adara woke up, drenched in sweat, almost like she had been drowning. She felt cold but, as placed a hand to forehead, she realised she was burning up. Her entire body was shaking, sivers wracked her body. Breathe, she needed to breathe. Placing her hands behind her head and her head between her legs, she began to let out short, sharp breaths that slowly developed into more regular, confident ones. After a few minutes of this, she felt her body calming a little.
Get a drink, eat something sugary. That was what Steve and Natasha used to do when she had had a nightmare this bad.
They weren't here though, so she got out of bed and forced her body towards the kitchen, feeling pathetic and rather sorry for herself. Not-Luka wasn't here, but she could feel a part of her mind shaking its head at the state she was in. she agreed with it, she was in an awful state, when was the last time a nightmare had such a bad effect on her? It didn't matter, she just needed to force herself to focus.
She got to the kitchen and got a mug from the cupboard, intending to make herself a coffee or something.
Plunged straight into the icy, cold river water. Adara was too far away to help, she would never make it in time.
She gripped the edge of the kitchen counter, recovering from the sudden dizzy spell as it overcame her, barely being able to catch the mug before it dropped to the floor. Luckily, she managed to grab it before it smashed, putting it back on the counter and catching breath. Sighing, she leant backwards, closing her eyes. Why had last night affected her so much? Peter had been fine, Tony had been there, he got him out of the water. But what if he hadn't been there? Or had been too late? It was a thought that kept running through her head.
"But Tony was there," she hissed to herself, "he got him out of the water so stop thinking about it."
But what if he hadn't been there?
She made herself some coffee, and drank it all in one swallow. It was bitter, bitterer than she had expected it to be, but it didn't feel like enough. With a sigh, she walked over to the fridge, opening it and looking at what was inside.
"Bière," (beer) she muttered to herself.
She went to grab it from inside the fridge, must be Norman's or something, when she heard someone outside the kitchen door. Naturally, she went to grab her knife but realised in a panic that she had left it under her pillow. She would just have to use her fists.
But, when the lights in the kitchen turned on, she realised who it was and relaxed.
"Adara?" said Norman Osborne, watching as she slammed the fridge door shut, "what are you doing awake at this time? And what are you doing in the kitchen with the lights off?"
"Couldn't get back to sleep," she said honestly, "I came in to make myself a cup of coffee," she gestured to the empty mug.
"With the lights off?"
She shrugged, "oui, no reason why, I just forgot to turn them on."
He looked at her curiously, "what happened to your face?"
She self-consciously touched her cheek, where there was an ugly scrape leftover from the fight only a few hours ago. She hadn't bothered to heal it, she had been too tired. It wasn't too bad, it had only bled a little before stopping, now it was just an ugly, red mark on the side of her face. It wouldn't take too long to heal, she would be able to do within fifteen or so minutes before school the next morning.
"I fell out the back of a van," she answered. Tony had told her that Norman knew she was the Bluebell, and didn't care. This turned out to be true, Norman simply nodded as he questioned no further. "What are you doing awake?"
"Working," he said, walking into the kitchen and grabbing a mug of his own, "keeps you up late. I'm a busy man."
"j'ai remarqué," (I noticed) she said she thought about how she could go whole days inside the tower without seeing him once. "I suppose you'll have to get back to doing your work."
He nodded, "I have to," he looked at her, "how are you settling in?"
"Fine, good," she said politely, "it's nice here- great here. Thanks for taking me in."
"It's no problem," he said, "you're not trouble. Plus, you get on well with my son. It's nice he has a friend."
She looked at him, "he has lots of friends."
"Now? I'm sure of that. In the past? He did not have as many."
Adara was doubtful, "what makes you think that?"
"I never met any."
Because he never wanted to bring them here. Adara glanced around, there was always tense atmosphere around Harry and his father. Under any other circumstances, maybe Adara would have brought up his general ignorance towards his son and his life. But, at four o'clock in the morning, maybe it wasn't the right time.
"Well, merci beaucoup," she said, "for taking me in." She glanced at her watch, "I'm going to try and get back to sleep."
He hummed, nodding, "good night, Adara."
She glanced at him, what a strange man. "Good night," she said politely, before leaving the kitchen with a longing look over her shoulder at the fridge, which held the beer.
Maybe it was a good thing Norman walked in, her drinking habit was not one she fancied getting back into. Plus, he had provided a sufficient distraction, allowing her to fully calm down from the nightmare. She wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, she knew that, but maybe she could read a book or something before she had to officially wake up for school.
Either way, she wasn't going back to sleep.
The next day, she was at the private entrance of Oscorp, arms folded and tapping her foot impatiently. She checked her watch, she was already running ten minutes late already, if Harry didn't hurry up, they wouldn't make it to period one on time.
"Harry, come on!" She shouted.
"Yeah, I'm coming," came the muffled, distance response.
After another minute and a half passed, when she realised she might still be waiting a little longer for her slightly useless friend, she got out her phone. To her surprise, Peter had dropped her a few texts.
Spider-Pete: I'm gonna check out that weird glowy thing in the workshop later.
Spider-Pete: I'll meet you and Ned there.
Adara was kind of tired of purple, glowing, chitauri things and was sick of working on them, which is why she usually left it to Harry to analyse in his own lab, not that he had gotten very far with it either. However, she didn't see the harm in helping out her friends either, they were in this together, both looking for the guy with the wings.
Me: I'll be there. See you at school.
Twenty seconds passed.
Spider-Pete: Yeah, see you then.
She put her phone back into her pocket, thinking about the winged guy. His technology was powerful, obviously not on the level of Stark, but more like Sam and his falcon costume. However, while Sam's suit was more agile with technology such as mini missiles and red wing. On the other hand, this new guy had more clunky technology, not as refined or agile as Sam's, but was larger and possibly stronger. Adara wouldn't fancy getting smacked with one of those wings.
There was almost no doubt in mind that this winged man was the source of the weapons. She reasoned that his wings and the strange, claw things he had were the reasons that him and his lackeys were able to grab a hold of technology from Ultron and New York. This made Adara worried to what he would be able to get his hands on next. It also made her feel a little angry, these men were profiting off of these disasters but, then again, wasn't that the way of society? It wasn't anything new, people selling off weapons to people who shouldn't have them. It happened all the time but, she thought back to Hydra as well as the bank robbery that took place a couple nights ago, it was a little more personal and close to home this time.
"I'm here! I'm here!" Harry suddenly appeared at the stop of the stairs, breathing heavily, "sorry, I was looking for something."
"What the hell are you wearing on your fucking feet?" Adara blinked at him, disgusted at his choice in footwear.
"These," he patted his feet, "are heelys."
"What are you? Twelve," she scoffed, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms, "they're bright yellow, I'm gonna get blinded just by looking at it."
"Well, I thought they were funny," he frowned, "they still fit though, which is good."
"Just get downstairs," she said, seriously annoyed at him.
"Okay," he said, taking two steps down before falling down the rest of them.
Adara grabbed him just before he face planted at the bottom of the stairs. "I cannot see the point in you wearing these, other than the idea that you're just a fucking idiot."
He shrugged, shaking himself with a sheepish grin on his face, "I just don't want to walk to school."
She glared at him before realising, "are you kidding me? Is this your way of telling me to fix the bike so I can drive you to school?"
"Is it working?"
"Connard," She muttered, shaking her head, "let's just go, you've made us late enough as it already is."
When they finally got to school, only just getting there on time, it turned out that Harry would get into trouble anyway as heelys weren't allowed in school and he was forced to change into a different pair.
So Adara went to class on his own, her first period was maths, so she figured she would just breeze through that by napping or discreetly reading a book. When she walked into class, Michelle was doing the latter anyway and didn't look up when Adara took her usual seat beside her. Neither Ned, Peter or Harry were in this class, just Michelle and she wasn't much for chatter. So Adara usually just slept or didn't bother, she wasn't much for maths anyway.
It wouldn't be until after half an hour had passed and Adara was drifting off that Michelle would say anything.
"Why weren't you at the party last night?" She asked.
Adara looked at her, "I told you, I had stuff to do."
"I thought you would've turned up when you heard all about the Spiderman being there," she said, "though he never actually turned up to the party and Peter left like five minutes in anyway."
"Did you actually think the Spiderman was going to show up?" She scoffed, "highly unlikely."
"I don't know," she shrugged, "Peter is," she looked for the right word, "unpredictable."
"What makes you say that?"
"I'm an observant person," she said flatly, "I know you are too. So, I'm guessing you've noticed something wrong about Peter."
This was beginning to feel a little like an interrogation and, knowing Michelle, it probably was in a subtle way. So, Adara remained impassive. "I guess," she shrugged, "but he's always been a bit of a weirdo anyway. Not to mention, his uncle was killed right in front of him."
The mention of death tended to deter most people as it was an awkward and sensitive topic, but Michelle wasn't most people.
"I mean more recently," she explained, "is the Stark internship real?"
Adara just shrugged.
"What about you, Adara? What do you think."
"I don't really know," she answered cautiously, decisively remaining neutral on all of this, "Pete's a surprisingly private person. He keeps himself to himself, if that's the English term for it."
"You're a pretty private person too," Michelle remarked.
"I suppose I am," Adara shrugged, "but so are you."
She said, "I'm not, there's just not much to me."
Adara disagreed, "I think you're an interesting person, Michelle." She felt like she was moving the conversation away from her and Peter, this was a good thing.
"I find other people more interesting," she said simply, "like you."
Adara frowned at this and was about to say something in response, when she was cut off.
"You girls have something more interesting than the lesson to share with us?" Asked the teacher.
Michelle and Adara turned to look at him. Anything would be more interesting than this, Adara thought as she looked at the writing and numbers on the front of the board. However, she wasn't going to say that aloud, as tempting as it was.
"Sorry, sir," she said, but didn't sound very apologetic.
"Don't let it happen again," the teacher said before turning back to the front.
The conversation was over and Adara felt a little relieved, Michelle was suspicious about something and she was going to have to be very, very careful.
"Is bashing it with a hammer really going to do anything?"
"Gah!" Peter jumped, spinning around to see Adara peering at it over his shoulder. "Don't sneak up on my like that, Dara!" He exclaimed, hand over heart.
She snorted, rolling her eyes. "Don't be such a pussy, Pete. So much for heightened senses."
"I was concentrating on this," He gestured to the weapons, "and I'm not just 'bashing it with a hammer,' I'm trying to remove," he furrowed his eyebrows, hitting it again, "this thing- aha!" He exclaimed.
Adara watched as Peter managed to remove one of the metal things surrounding the purple thing. He carefully removed it, placing it to the side before cutting the wires around it with great precision. Both of them looked up when they heard Ned approaching.
"Hey, thanks for bailing on me," said Ned, "oh, hey, Adara."
"Hey, Ned," she said, "don't be too pissed at Pete," she gestured to the weapon, "he had a bad night."
Ned seemed fascinated. "Woah, what is that?"
"I don't know. Some guy tried to vaporize me with it," said Peter with a shrug.
"Seriously?"
"Yeah."
"Awesome," Peter gave his friend a look, "I mean, not awesome. Totally uncool of that guy. So scary."
"Harry and I have seen this before," explained Adara, "we picked it up a week or so ago. We don't know much about it. It could be an energy core, an alien one of some kind."
"Wait, you and Harry?" Ned was confused, "where did you guys see one of these things?"
Peter and Adara exchanged a look. Peter wondered whether Adara would ever tell the truth or not, but he doubted it. After what Ned had said to Liz yesterday about Spiderman and how he would show up to the party, he figured that Adara didn't trust Ned enough to tell him. But, the question was, how was she going to explain away these things to Ned?
"We found one," she shrugged, "how we found it was unimportant." So she wasn't going to explain it.
"But-"
"Ned, this isn't something I can tell you right now," she said sharply, "what we should do now is concentrate on this," she pointed to the energy core, "it's dangerous."
"You said you reckon it was an energy core. Like a power source of some kind," said Peter.
"But all these microprocessors are attached to it," Ned went on at Adara's confused look, "well, That's an inductive charging plate," explained Ned, pointing to a section in the broken weapon, "That's what I use to charge my toothbrush."
"So whoever's making these weapons is obviously combining alien tech with ours," Peter realised.
"That is literally the coolest sentence anyone has ever said. I just want to thank you for letting me be part of your journey. Into this amazing-"
Peter slammed the hammer down on the core. It made a short, sharp sound and then bounced upwards. There was a short burst of purple light that lit up around it, and the noise of the hammer slamming down on it reminded Adara of someone bashing a hammer on a piece of metal. It was a loud noise, and most people in the workshop turned to look and see what was going on. Ned, Peter and Adara looked at each other, the two boys looking a little surprised while Adara just seemed curious. Slowly, all three looked at the teacher sitting at the front of the classroom.
"Keep your fingers clear of the blades," he said, not looking up from his crosswords.
Relaxed, Peter turned to Adara. "Did you know it would do that?"
"No," she shrugged, "I usually just let Harry deal with the sciency stuff."
"You're no help, Dara," he said with a sigh, looking down at the purple object, "you're gonna have to ask Harry for help. We've gotta figure out what this thing is and who makes it."
"It's alien, isn't it?" She said, "that can't be made on earth. I reckon it's leftover from the New York attack."
Ned nodded, obviously agreeing with Adara, "yeah, we don't know what kind of stuff could be in it. How about we run some tests in the lab after school?"
"Sounds good," said Adara, raising her eyebrows as she saw Ned and PEter doing their stupidly long handshake. "Do you always have to do that?"
"Don't be jealous, Dara," grinned Peter, "we offered to teach you it."
"And become a loser like you two?" She scoffed, "I don't think so, Pete. let's just go."
As they walked through the corridors, the conversation between the two boys continued as Adara checked her phone. They were talking about science and stuff, but Adara didn't really care. All that stuff had never really been her strongest point.
"First, I say we put the glowy thing in the mass spectrometer," said Ned.
"First, we gotta find a better name for it than glowy thing," said Peter.
"You're right," agreed Ned.
"I don't know," said Adara, not looking up from her phone, "'glowy thing' has a good ring to it."
"Crap!" Exclaimed Peter and he dodged around a corner. Ned stopped in the middle of the corridor, confused at what Peter was doing. "Come on," Peter said to his friend, who walked at a much slower pace to where Peter was hiding. "Psst, Dara!" He hissed, "what are you doing?"
Adara, who hadn't looked up from her phone and had continued walking, paused and looked behind her. "What are you doing?" She retorted.
"Hiding," he said, "look, it's that guy who tried to kill us last night!"
Adara turned and watched the two mean walking down the corridor, realising that one of them was the bigger, more sensible out of the two people who had driven the van last night. She didn't recognise his new companion and silently wondered what happened to the guy with the beard from before. No time to worry about it, they must have picked up on the energy the core let out downstairs in the workshop and were coming to investigate.
"They tried to kill you?" Ned said, "you better get out of here!"
"No, no, no," said Peter, grabbing Adara's arm and dragging her behind the corner when she didn't move, "we have to follow them, maybe they could lead me into the guy who dropped me in the lake last night."
"Someone dropped you in a lake?" Ned looked at Adara who confirmed this with a nod.
"Yeah, it was not good," said Peter and she was reminded of her dream the night before. She shivered, forcing it out of her mind.
"Come on," said Adara, "I have an idea."
"What?" Asked Peter, who was still whispering despite the fact she was talking at normal volume, "don't let it be something stupid."
"I'm not always trying to do something stupid," she said, "why does everyone always say that?" She rolled her eyes, "look, I have a plan and it's gonna look really freaky to you Ned. Just don't ask many questions."
"Huh?" The other boy was confused.
"Dara-" Peter started but was cut off.
Suddenly, she transformed from young looking Adara Thomas to a much older, stern-looking, sharply featured woman who could play off well as a teacher. Peter blinked, he had never seen Adara use her powers fully before. Ned looked even more confused.
"Wait-" but he couldn't get anymore words out, standing there in shock.
"Pete, do you have a tracker or something on you?" She ignored Ned, focusing on the mission for now. "I need to use it."
"I-uh," he regained himself, reaching into his sleeve and pulling something out, "here, yeah, I think this will work." He passed her a spider shaped device, "just press there to activate it."
She nodded, "pass me the coat you were wearing this morning, Ned."
He, in too much shock to defy, nodded, started worming around in his bag for his coat and handed it to Adara. She put it on, it covered up her more, teenage-like clothes and made it easier for her to appear like a teacher. Quickly, she scanned for security cameras and any onlookers, no one. She then glanced in the club room that was in session, no one in there had noticed them yet.
With a quick nod, she headed off, following the two men as they entered the workshop room, there was no doubt they were looking for the glowy thing now. She hurried down the stairs, noticing that she was wearing trainers, that could be a pretty big give away. But, then again, these guys had no reason to presume that there was a shapeshifter in their presence, right? She had to be careful anyway.
When she got down the stairs, she overheard their conversation.
"Man, could you imagine what the boss would say if he knew where we were?" Said the new man, the one she didn't recognise.
"It's saying there was an energy pulse right here," said the man from last night, looking at some kind of device, confirming Adara's theory. She wondered how good their technology must be if they were able to pinpoint the location to this point specifically. It must have come from when Peter had used his hammer to smack down on the glowy thing.
"Well, there's no sign of the weapon," said the other guy. "And even if it was here, now it's gone."
"So are we," and Adara shifted a chair to make her presence know. The man looked up, startled and confused. "Who are you?"
It was time to do her best teacher impression. "I could ask you the same thing," she said as she approached them, eying the way the big guy put his hand in his pocket. He was armed. She had to be very, very careful. "I'm Mrs Briggins, a teacher at this school. What are you doing down here?"
"We-uh," the newer guy glanced at his partner, who seemed to have way more experience and confidence with this.
"We're working some maintenance down here," he lied smoothly, "we were alerted to some kind of accident. We're just here to fix it," he gestured to the device. "This machine was broken, luckily it didn't take too much time to fix."
This was her chance, she was close enough to him now. "I see," she said, pressing the tracker she had in her palm, "well, thank you," she grasped his hand, moving to shake it. At the same time, she loosened her grip and allowed the tracker to escape onto the man.
He was surprised at her shaking his hand, but did it nonetheless. Good, he suspected nothing.
"I should let you be on your way," she said, calm and collected, "sorry if I interrupted anything."
"Oh, no, we were just finishing up here," said the man she recognised, "just let us be and we'll just pack up and go."
"No problem," she said, hurrying back upstairs.
Both Peter and Ned were still in the same spot. Peter was looking surprisingly worried, while NEd was still in some form of shock. She hurried over to them, not wasting a second more. She leant against the wall, just out of sight of the window into the chess club room.
"Are any of them looking?" She asked and Peter checked before shaking his head. "Good," she transformed back into Adara, letting out a sigh of relief as she handed the coat back to Ned. "Thanks for letting me borrow it," she turned to Peter, "I planted the tracker."
"Good, and they didn't think anything weird of it?"
"Nope, nothing," she nodded, "are you okay, Ned?"
"Are you a shapeshifter?" He said, mouth open in shock, "what the-"
She covered his mouth, fixing him with a fierce, green glare, "not so loud, Ned, I don't want the entire chess club knowing." He nodded frantically and she let him go, "to answer your question, yes, I am. I'll explain it more later, I promise. Can I trust you, Ned?"
He nodded.
"Even after what happened yesterday during gym?"
"Of course, of course," he said, "I would never do something that stupid ever again. I've learnt from my mistakes."
Adara still had her doubts, "I don't know…"
"You can trust him, Dara," Peter said, "if you tell him, he'll know how important it is that no one knows," his eyes were serious, "I trust him, does that mean anything to you?"
Peter's trust meant a lot to her, if he trusted Ned to keep his secret then surely she could trust him too. Their gazes connected and PEter nodded encouragingly.
"Okay," she said, looking back at the other boy, "I trust you, Ned. I'll tell you when we're back at Pete's and are tracking these guys," she glanced around, "too many people could overhear us here."
"Really?" Ned got excited, "this is so cool!" He exclaimed, "both of my best friends have super powers!" Adara and Peter shushed him at the same time, but he kept talking at a quieter volume anyway, "how did you do that? How does it work? You were so badass, I've never seen anything like that in my life!"
"I'll explain later," she said, "let's just go."
And the new trio headed off and Adara felt confidence growing within her. They were going to track down these weapons, she just knew it. And she was certain that she was not going to let Hydra or Luka on their hands on them.
A/N: Once again, I am super sorry for not replying to any reviews or thanking anyone, I just really need to get this chapter out now. My proof reading here is awful and rushed too, so apologies for that. My life's gotten surprisingly busy so far this summer, and it's barely started yet. I'll leave you with more than a few incorrect quotes to keep you occupied and in my way of saying sorry.
[at a job interview]
Interviewer: What's your greatest weakness?
Adara: I can be uncooperative
Interviewer: give me an example
Adara: no
And another one!
Adara: So, wanna bang?
Adara: Hang. Sorry, autocorrect.
Peter: This is a verbal conversation.
Another one.
Peter [in the middle of a fight]: Adara! Adara!
Adara: What?!
Peter [calmly pointing]: This is where I saw that deer the other day.
And one more!
Tony: Adara, no
Adara: Adara, yes
Steve: Adara, no
Adara: Adara, maybe
Natasha: Adara, no
Adara: Adara, no
Next chapter: Adara explains some stuff to Ned and our lovely pairing share some deep thoughts at a sleepover. Then, it's off to DC!
Please help me I'm in love with Detroit Become Human
