Author's Note: Thank you so much for your feedback! I'll try to do my best to write more about Sakura and Peter's thoughts and feelings during their POVs, and sorry I'm updating so late! But keep an eye out for the next chapter, which I'll hopefully be posting before December.

The ride back to Queens is mostly silent, with Sakura shooting Charles worried looks now and then to see how he's festering after the whole elevator debacle. Not everyone in the bus was unfortunate enough to be caught in the middle of it, but looking up at the monument outside knowing your schoolmates are in grave danger can be hard to process. Eventually, when one of them–Sakura thinks it must be Flash when she sees the trophy waving about at the front–loudly exclaims, "I just met Spider-Man!"

Just like that, the silence is broken and everyone is chattering to one another about their experience.

"I almost threw up when it happened—"

"—oh my god, we almost died!"

"Lucky I didn't join you guys—"

"—my mom's been calling me every thirty minutes..."

The cacophony of voices makes her wince and rub her head, still exhausted from last night and today's stressful experience. She's seated at the back of the bus, away from MJ who only nodded at her in understanding when she passed by.

Her ribs still ache underneath her shirt, her healing skills not quite up to par with her other self. She doesn't try to heal it again, knowing she must conserve her chakra. It would be best to practice first, anyway.

She gazes out the window as the sky turns orange. The color reminds her of her teammate, Naruto. He brings with him memories of a place called Konoha, and flashes of people – Kakashi, Ino, Yamato, Sai, Shizune, Tsunade, Sasuke'sbleedingeye andthechirpofathousandbirds—

Sakura whimpers.

"Sak, hey."

She jumps and grasps tightly at the hand on her shoulder. Peter stares at her wide-eyed, and she lets go in a panic. With a pained smile, Sakura says, "You startled me."

He goes to sit beside her and she wills away the memories to think about later. She gulps when his knee bumps into hers.

The sudden warmth of his presence brings comfort to her.

"How are you holding up?"

"I'm doing fine," she says.

"What are you doing back here?" He asks her softly, the tender look on his face making her heart skip a beat. "All by yourself?"

(She remembers someone who used to have the same effect on her, but he never cared about her like Peter did.)

Shrugging, Sakura crosses her arms, chewing on her bottom lip.

"Just thinking. What happened today was… I'm just tired. What about you? Where were you when it all went down?" She asks him, but of course she already knew. Except she wasn't supposed to know.

Peter is such an open book that she wonders how she didn't notice before what an awful liar he is. He can't stop fidgeting when he answers, "I had to go to the bathroom."

Rather belatedly, that's when she feels that same pulsating energy of a Chitauri core. Her eyes drop to the bag on the seat next to Peter, then flicks back to those soft brown eyes.

Distrust and betrayal comes over her. Sakura leans back, her voice sarcastic, "Riiight."

Peter furrows his eyebrows in confusion, and she's such a hormonal teenager that she inwardly gushes at how cute he is while still inwardly seething in anger.

"If you don't mind, I want to take a nap."

"Sure," he says hesitantly. His eyes search her for any hint of deceit. "I'll just be over there. With Ned. If you need me. Just–text me if you need anything, alright?"

Not likely.

"Okay."

He coughs into his hand awkwardly. "Right, I'll be going now…"

She turns back to the window, pretending not to notice how forlorn his trudge back to his seat is.

Her head is jumbled all over. Would a journal help her sort her memories better? She rests her head on the window, closes her eyes and misses the warmth next to her. She plugs her ears and listens to instrumental music in an effort to ease the headaches.

Again, the images of her precious people from the other reality cloud her mind but although she longs to reach out to them she knows she's alone in her head. Is there even a way to go back? Does she even want to go back? Here, she can't even protect anyone properly, not with this body. But something seems to tether her to this place.

Kizashi and Mebuki had pelted missed calls one after the other to her phone while everything went down back at the monument, televised nationwide with great scrutiny largely due to Spider-Man's presence. Everyone was confused as to why he would be in Washington when Queens was his territory, and netizens speculated theories ranging from Avenger missions to causing the whole thing himself for attention. Only Sakura knew the truth.

Finding out his identity had surprised her, but she understood. When you have the power to protect, people with the power to harm would flock to you and everyone around you. What she couldn't understand is why he would ignore her idea to dispose of the cores and instead recklessly carry around such volatile objects. Even after a demonstration of its danger, Peter still has the other core with him.

She wants to trust that he can handle it, having been in the streets for months now, but maybe he's not ready for such a responsibility.

Sakura regrets snubbing him, since she's blown her chance to take the core. Perhaps there is another way?

She considers disguising as Sucker Punch later at night to shadow Spider-Man, but there's no guarantee that he would be bringing the core with him to patrol. Still, it's worth a shot.

When the bus slows to a stop outside Midtown High, she shakes herself out of her thoughts. A crowd is waiting for them, and she sees her parents and brother surge forward as the bus doors open.

"Sakura!" Her father takes her into his protective embrace. Beside him, her mother is sniffling, slightly tear-eyed in her worry. Daiki latches onto her as soon as Kizashi lets her go.

"Were you one of the students inside the elevator?" Mebuki asks, voice trembling. Sakura can see her still in her lab coat.

She nods and is crushed into another tight hug. Her brother doesn't seem to want to let her go.

Sakura is briefly distracted when she catches sight of Peter with Aunt May, but she stubbornly looks away when he glances back. She waves goodbye at MJ as she and her family leave to go home.

They pass by Charles, being interviewed by Betty Brant for the school news. He's flailing his arms around and talking excitedly, much better than the condition he was in before. He smiles at her in gratitude when he sees her, to which she nods and smiles back.

Betty turns to her, brightening. "Hey, Sakura! Care for an interview? I heard you were—"

Sakura cuts her off, shaking her head vehemently. "Oh, no, I'd rather not."

The blond seems to want to continue persuading her, but a look from Sakura instead has her saying, "No problem! Take care."

The Haruno family pile into their small car and arrive back home without any trouble. Sakura is about to head over to her room, an excuse at the tip of her tongue, but one look at her brother has her hesitating.

That's right, I promised to hang out with him after the Decathlon event.

Conflicted, as she has planned on tracking down Spider-Man during his nightly patrols, she says, "I'll just freshen myself up a bit."

Kizashi nods as he and Mebuki head to the kitchen. "We'll call you down when dinner's ready."

Daiki sits at the living room and gazes at her hopefully. "Pick a movie, I'll be back in a jiffy."

Sakura rushes to her room and feels for her chakra. With such strain in a short amount of time, it's only about a half full, but she figures that one clone wouldn't hurt. Plus, she plans on not wasting anymore chakra until she can work on increasing it.

One clone and henge later, she's off.

Next time, Daiki, she silently promises as she lands outside her window. She didn't really like using clones for things other than training or missions, as she thinks life is meant to be experienced firsthand.

She makes a stop at Peter's apartment window first. Quickly checking for his signature and finding none, she slides it open and enters his room.

Everything is in a state of disorganized order.

Various appliance components litter his desk, pieces of crumpled paper overflow in the bin, some clothes don't quite make it into the hamper.

There's a photograph of them on his nightstand. They're with Ned and MJ, but Peter has his arm around her and they have matching grins on their faces. She lingers on this before reminding herself of the task at hand.

She can't feel the energy of the core anywhere, but still makes the effort to look around.

When it's clear that he brought the core with him in his nightly duties, she gives up and leaves the same way she entered.

The moon lights up the streets as she darts from shadow to shadow. It's late enough to not be wandering off to yourself. Many are in bed at this time, but New York isn't called the City That Never Sleeps for nothing.

Sucker Punch spends hours looking for the vigilante in blue and red. She yawns quietly behind her mask as she sticks to the side of a building, in an alleyway.

If I don't see him in the next thirty minutes, I swear I'm sneaking into his room.

As if the spirits heard her, a man in a muscle shirt and a woman with bright yellow highlights stumble out of a door from which music blares out. They both lean into a kiss. From where she's hanging, it looks consensual but she keeps an eye out.

When they both start undressing each other, it gets too awkward for her.

Okay, spirits, I get it. I have no love life. You don't need to rub it in my face, y'know.

But then the door opens once again.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing with my girlfriend?!"

The woman pulls away from the man, addressing another one who has a large snake tattoo on his right arm. Yellow Highlights sneers at Snake Tattoo, with a rude gesture. "Fuck off, Heath."

Muscle Shirt laughs mockingly at the other man's face. He pulls Yellow Highlights flush to his body, groping her shapely bottom, which she wiggles appreciatively.

"I think I'm about to do her."

This sets Snake Tattoo off.

He lunges at Muscle Shirt–whose pants are down at his ankles, rendering him unable to escape. Yellow Highlights slaps at Snake Tattoo's back, but he's too busy mashing Muscle Shirt's face into the ground.

"Get off of him, asshole!" She shrieks, her hits not even causing him to flinch.

Sucker Punch doesn't really feel like breaking up this fight. For one, it's not any of her business. She'd rather not have a love life if it's as tumultuous as this trio.

Muscle Shirt somehow procures a small knife, but Snake Tattoo unarms him in a quick movement. Yellow Highlights screams when he raises it up threateningly, the knife glinting dangerously.

"Stop it, man, we can talk it out," Muscle Shirt pleads.

In a flash, Sucker Punch jumps off the side of the building, straight for Snake Tattoo. She punches the man in the gut. He stumbles away from the other man. She stabs–with her fingers–at his neck.

Snake Tattoo immediately goes down.

Sucker Punch snatches the knife before the other two could grab it. Yellow Highlights is blubbering as she checks over Muscle Shirt's injuries. He groans pitifully when he's jostled.

The knife is turned over in her hands, the sharp point away from the two lest they think she would hurt them.

Yellow Highlights doesn't seem to think so. "Thank you so much for your help…?" She trails away.

"Call me Sucker Punch." As much of a jerk Peter can be, she's grown rather attached to the name he's given her secret identity.

"Sucker Punch," the woman repeats. "Thank you."

Just then, the man she's been looking for all night long makes his presence known. He does so by stealing the knife in her hands with his webs. Spider-Man quips as he looks over the weapon, "Let me guess… It's not what it looks like?"

Despite his mask, Sucker Punch knows his face drops when she turns around and he recognizes her. She raises her hands to placate him, moving slightly to cover the two still on the ground. "It's not what it looks like."

She leaps upward as Spider-Man unleashes a net of webs. Yellow Highlights shrieks when she and her lover are caught in it, the material of the webs hardening.

"What the heck are you doing here?" Spider-Man splutters, shooting web after web at her.

She dodges each shot gracefully. "I should ask you the same question."

"I work here! Kinda." He flattens to the ground as a trash can flies over his head. "Woah, watch it, will ya?!"

She jumps a few times between the two buildings in the alleyway until she's on the rooftop of one of them. He's behind her in a second, hot on her tail as she leaps from rooftop to rooftop.

"Oh." She considers for a moment. "I should ask you a different question: where is the Chitauri core?"

He neglects to answer her question, bombarding her with his own: "What were you doing back there? Were you mugging them? Seriously?!"

She retorts heatedly, "Do you have selective hearing or did you not hear me when I said it's not what it looks like?"

Unlike anywhere in the Elemental Nations, there's no clearing anywhere to safely fight it out without harming civilians. Sucker Punch decides to run up a tall building under construction, hoping for minimal casualties.

She's not unfamiliar with the concept of 'Fight first, ask questions later,' something which a lot of shinobi tend to utilize.

She can feel Spider-Man's surprise and alarm when she sticks to the surface of the building, quite similar to how he does. ("How are you doing that?!" He shouts at her.)

Finally, they arrive at the top.

"Can you finally tell me what's going on?"

Sucker Punch shakes her head and extends her palm out. "Give me the core."

"I'm not giving you anything, much less a bomb!"

"You would rather expose all of New York City to its danger?" She clenches her fists at her side, frustration coating her voice. "You have the nerve to abandon me, now you think you have the right to ask me questions?"

Spider-Man is in a defensive pose, ready for anything she might hit him with. "I didn't know whether I could trust you or not," he says. "You could be planning on using the core for evil!"

"You are such a child!" She snaps.

He reels back. "No I'm not!"

"For the record, I was helping those two. If you used your brain to think instead of jumping to conclusions–"

Her vision is suddenly impaired. Her mask is swallowed by the web on her face, courtesy of one Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man.

You don't want to talk? She growls in her mind. Fine. Have it your way!

She cocks her fist back, the glow of her chakra lighting up her side of the roof. Spider-Man stares at it worryingly. Sucker Punch pours all of her frustration for the man–the boy behind the mask and punches him off of the building.

He lands on the roof of another building below, but there's a visible crater where he lands.

Cradling his side, he watches with wide eyes as she disappears with a swirl of cherry blossoms then reappears in front of him. He braces himself for another hit, but she only grabs at his suit and pulls him close to her mask, now sans web.

"I'll ask again," she says threateningly. "Where. Is. The. Damn. Core? If you tell me, you won't see it or me again."

"I don't negotiate with bad guys," he replies shakily. "You're not getting anything from me."

He slumps back to the ground when she lets her grip loosen. When he springs back up, she's nowhere to be found.

Sucker Punch curses herself as her body feels the worst of the exhaustion. Technically, testing the limits of her chakra is a good thing since that's the only way it could grow, but she's not comfortable with draining herself outside of training. Thankfully her henger is still intact and her clone hasn't dispelled yet.

If the core isn't in his room and it's not on his person then he must've stashed it somewhere. But where in New York could it be?

She hides in the shadows once more, following Spider-Man's every move.

He has laid on the rooftop for close to twenty minutes before he groans into a standing position and swings away. She's hot on his heels.

She can soon feel where his destination is supposed to be, the malevolent energy of the core reaching out to her from a dark alleyway where he has hidden his backpack. Frankly, she's surprised it hasn't been stolen.

He pulls the core out to double check that it's still in there.

Sucker Punch weaves a basic genjutsu layer over him, where he sees himself dropping the core back to his bag but from her point of view she can see it land on the ground instead.

Smirking in triumph, she waits for him to leave.

When he's gone, she slinks out of the shadows and takes the glowing purple Chitauri core. A storage scroll would be handy right now, she muses. Good thing I know the seal for it. Although not as good as Naruto with fuuinjutsu, she knew some basic seals that he taught her.

She doesn't have a scroll or any piece of stationery with her so she just puts the core into her pocket.

What a night.

She didn't expect Spider-Man to be suspicious of her and her intentions, which put a damper in her plans. In retrospect, he was smart to be suspicious. It's still frustrating to be thought of as a villain when all she wants to do is help out.

She might've been a little too rough with him too, and the punch might've been a little bit unnecessary. She can be a bit hot-headed at times, honestly.

No doubt he would be even more distrustful of her when he finds out that the core is gone. But she has no choice, now does she?

How can she trust him when he can't trust her?

It's hard to separate Peter Parker from Spider-Man. They're very different people, but ultimately they're the same person. So why does she feel guilty for feeling the slightest bit resentful toward her crush?

For the first time since she merged souls, she wishes she's back in her other reality.

Sighing, she makes the trip back home.

Boys suck.