"What?!" Peter echoed.
"Your identity." Lila pleaded, "Who's under that mask?"
"Yeah, I know that but- why?"
"I just told you, we could be great friends, unstoppable allies!" She lent closer, tapping the side of his chin, "But you need to remove that mask." Her hand trailed down the side of his neck and she attempted to lift up the mask.
"Yes but- no! I can't!" Peter exclaimed, gently pushing Lila away. "You- you can't take my mask off like that anyway." He tapped the side of his skull with nervous laughter, "I don't know how it works exactly but Mr Stark made it so that only I can collapse it-"
"Tony Stark?"
"Uh- well, yeah, Mr Stark uh- designed- no, what's the word again... uh- created- created this suit for me."
"But why can't you tell me your identity?" Lila repeated, anger growing in her voice.
"Because I just can't!-"
"Why?"
"Because I- I don't know! Ladybug told me not to! She said it can be dangerous and-"
"Ladybug."
"Yeah-"
Lila's face turned from frustration into a scowl. "Of course Ladybug had something to do with this! She ruins everything and sticks her nose in all the places that it doesn't belong!"
"No no! No! You don't understand! She was telling me not to reveal my identity to anyone but she was telling me because I was about to reveal my identity to her!"
"Ah. So now you're telling me that you are willing to reveal your identity to Ladybug but not to me." Lila spat.
"No! It- I- I was only going to do that because I accidentally found out her identity and so-"
"That's still exactly the same thing! I just showed you my- wait." Lila narrowed her eyes, "You found out Ladybug's identity?"
Realising he had probably said too much, Peter climbed up the wall slowly. "Uh, well- uh, I don't know her name." Peter lied, "I just saw her briefly-"
"I told him it wouldn't work, and I was right." Lila murmured shaking her head as her anger fading to a soft smile. "But I've found out something that is still valuable."
"What?" Peter echoed, not entirely hearing her.
"You're right. I was just overreacting. Maybe in time you will trust me, but I understand that I must leave now." She smiled softly and turned away. "Goodbye, Spider-Man."
Confused, Peter watched her leave. I have a bad feeling about her.
/*\*/*\
Peter was walking towards the school, his suit hidden at the bottom of his bag, ready to give to Tony Stark later in the day. He saw movement behind him, Chloe's car. Peter frowned slightly.
"Petey!" Chloe rolled down the window and waved at him. "You walked all the way to school?! Why didn't you ride in the car?"
"I had things to do!" Peter called back, continuing his walk towards the school.
"What things?"
"Don't worry!"
Chloe rolled the window back up without saying a word and Peter smiled, shaking his head in amusement.
/*\*/*\
Peter walked through the entrance of the school, spotting Alya, Marrinete, Michelle and Adrien standing near the back wall. He made his way over to them as he got their attention.
"Peter!" Alya exclaimed, "you're just in time!"
"For what?" Peter asked confusedly, raising an eyebrow.
"To see Michelle and I's amazing project-thing we were working on last night!"
"Oh, yeah." Peter grinned, "Michelle was staying with you last night, right?"
"Yeah." Alya grinned, but Michelle frowned.
"How did you know that?" Michelle asked, narrowing her eyes with suspicion.
"Oh- uh- Marinette telled me- told me! She told me yesterday!" Peter stuttered. He had heard it from Marinette, but as Spider-Man. Not in person.
"I never told you about it Peter." Marinette responded, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh- well uh- I must of heard you guys talking- uh talking about it yesterday." Peter said quickly.
"Huh. Alright." Michelle responded, turning her attention back to Alya.
Before Alya could start talking again, the bell rung, signifying that they needed to get to class.
"It seems we won't be able to tell you, but let's just reveal," Alya mused, "that Michelle and I pooled our ideas and resources, and we are pretty sure that we are close to figuring out the identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir!" She ended with a grin.
"And possibly some other superheroes," Michelle added, glancing at Peter briefly, "Like Spider-Man."
Peter froze, she couldn't possibly mean... but before he could respond, they were heading off to class. I should get to class too. Peter thought, following along.
/*\*/*\
It was in the middle of Miss Bustier's class that Peter remembered about the 'live coverage' of the space trash returning to earth.
"Alya!" He whispered, and she turned around.
"Huh?"
"The space trash! Ask if we can watch it!"
"Why don't you do it?" Alya mouthed, checking the time briefly on her phone.
Peter shrugged and Alya shook her head with a smile, raising her hand quietly.
"Yes, Alya?" The teacher asked.
"Do you know what time the live coverage of the space trash coming back to Paris is happening? Isn't it on right now? Can we watch it?"
Miss Bustier put a hand to her face. "Ah! Thank you Alya! I completely forgot about it!" She laughed, walking over to her computer by her desk. "Just give me a minute. Go ahead and talk amongst yourselves quietly."
A quiet murmur broke out amongst the classroom.
"Thanks Alya." Peter whispered, and Alya turned around, giving him a thumbs up.
Out of the whole class, a certain voice was the loudest of them all.
"Why are we going to be watching a bunch of trash return to earth? This is going to be so boring." Flash whined.
"My thoughts exactly Flash." Chloe agreed. "It's nothing to waste TV time over, exactly the reason why I told daddy to make it return early in the morning when no one would be watching." Chloe laughed. It was an annoying laugh.
The class went silent.
"Seriously Chloe?" Alya shook her head in annoyance and turned, whispering something to Marinette.
"What? I've done you all favour, really, who wants to watch trash-"
"Alright Chloe, that's enough." Miss Bustier interrupted, hiding any negative emotion with a smile.
The screen flickered to life as the teacher connected her laptop.
"-while there was no complete filming of the trash returning to the earth, we do have footage from-"
The video stopped, and Miss Bustier furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, looking at her laptop. After a few seconds the video resumed, a slightly confused looking reporter on-screen.
"We apologise for the interruption, the footage seems to have been corrupted, however if you wish to view it, any quick search on a social media platform such as YouTube or Facebook will bring-"
The feed switched to another reporter standing behind a green-screened live feed of what was currently happening.
"It seems we are having some technical difficulties but in the meantime we can see from our live feed of the site, that there are numerous SHIELD agents around the area where the objects from space have landed. They seem to have cornered off and quarantined a certain amount of the rubbish and-" The reporter put a hand to his ear as if he were listening to a message.
Could they have found something? Peter thought, SHIELD doesn't often stray outside of the American borders.
The reporter turned briefly to look behind him, before presumably remembering there was a green-screen there. He then narrowed his eyes, looking at something off screen. "Ah- We've just received information regarding these SHIELD agents. They've seen to have contained something and are currently taking it to a lab somewhere in the city, the name of which is currently unknown to the public-"
"Yes!" Nino exclaimed, holding up his hand to high-five Adrien, who confusedly high-fived him back.
"Shhh. Nino." Chloe hissed, apparently more interested than she was letting on.
"What? We were right! They definitely found aliens. That's why they're quarantining the trash!"
"So? It's not that exciting. We know aliens exist after what happened with the attack on New York and all-" Chloe's words were drowned out by the murmurs that began to break out in the class.
A smile spread across Peter's face, but then faltered. If I've seen enough movies, he thought, then someone is definitely going to try and steal whatever they found. But we're going to make sure that doesn't happen.