It is a rule in science and in life that what goes up must eventually fall back down. Frankie Hart, however, was the exception.

It had been a week since she and Peter had begun testing everything, putting their bodies through the ringer and somehow Frankie felt like she was on top of the world. Nothing hurt- not really. Any bruises or cuts were healed within a day, leaving her family no room to notice anything. It was all… amazing.

"Would you please stop making so much noise?"

Frankie whipped her head up, her fading pink hair flying into her eyes as she peered over at her brother. Her taped up fists froze up in the air, a much quicker reaction time than she'd ever had before. The squeak of her punching bag swinging pierced her ears like a bitch, but the heavy pump of extremely loud guitars and heavy bass poured from her earbuds into her ears. It didn't cancel out all the outside noise, she'd discovered, but it provided a decent buffer.

Charlie glared right back at her, backpack slung over his shoulder like he was ready to leave again. She could've sword he'd just gotten home, the sound of his footsteps having broken the thrum of cars honking miles away and her own fists pounding into the vinyl of her punching bag. But time was funny, bleeding together like every minute was an hour.

"Sorry," she chirped back, dropping her fists by her side and tugging her earbuds out, "Just had a good day. No thanks to you, of course."

She carefully glanced down at her fingers, seeing flecks of dried blood under her nails. Her ears hadn't stopped bleeding, though the flow had definitely decreased over the past week. It was like her brain was getting used to the constant thrum of noise.

"Clearly," Charlie grumbled, keeping his eyes on her as she stepped around him towards the kitchen, "You look like death."

The blonde shrugged, not really caring to argue about it. He was right, of course. Between school and all the experiments with Peter, Frankie hadn't bothered to shower or even sleep in the past three days. But she didn't feel heavy or tired. No, it was amazing. Some strange, unlimited burst of energy that kept her going was keeping her moving around and she had no plans of letting it stop.

"Who cares how I look?" she decided to counter, "Besides, you always look like a fucking Neandrathal after practice and I don't say shit."

"You say plenty of shit about it," the brown haired boy shot back, tilting his head to the side, "Did you-"

"Eat today?" she cut him off, hand already jutting out and ripping the fridge open, "Yes, Charlie. I have. So you can shut up about it. Want proof?"

Without waiting for an answer, Frankie pulled out a tupperware full of cold pasta and immediately started shoving a fistful into her mouth. She watched with joy as her brother's face twisted up in disgust as she moaned and chewed dramatically with her mouth open. Bits of chewed up pasta fell from her lips and onto the floor, making her giggle. It didn't matter.

"You're fucking disgusting," Charlie grumbled, looking at her like she was a bomb about to blow, "You hanging with Parker again today?"

"You care?"

"Barely."

Frankie snorted, dropping the container of pasta onto the counter with a loud thunk. "Best brother ever."

"Only one you got, ass face," he grumbled back, making his way towards the door, "Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."

The blonde rolled her eyes, groaning under her breath. "When have I ever done anything stupid?"

Frankie was currently doing something very stupid.

"Are you watching?"

Peter smirked as he looked up at Frankie, barely holding onto the bars of the old fire escape and letting her legs dangle in the air. They'd been trying in vain for the past three days to see if she would stick to the walls. Apparently, the pink haired girl refused to believe she couldn't do it.

Peter hadn't been able to shake her or her constant stream of manic energy. He hadn't seen her like this since they were children- bouncing off the walls, practically vibrating with energy. Her eyes were wide and wild, something that brought a very hesitant smile to his face.

"Yes," he yelled back up at her, leaning back on his heels and cradling his throbbing knuckles, "Ready to see you fall on your ass again."

"Fuck off, dipshit!" she shrieked before swinging her legs harshly and throwing herself towards the brick wall beside her.

Peter couldn't stop the scoff that fell out of his lips as he watched Frankie fall to the ground, arms flailing in the air. In his defense, she was only seven feet off the ground and she'd insisted on doing this ten times already, causing his sympathy to wear thin.

She turned her head, pink hair coated in crumbled up concrete from the numerous times she'd hit the ground and glared up at him. "Stop laughing."

"Stop jumping off fire escapes," he shrugged, stepping forward towards her, "Can we please go home now?"

"Why?" Frankie asked breathlessly, her face broken out into a large smile even as she lay on the ground, "We just started."

Peter peered down at her curiously, watching her smile spread manically over her face and pink hair tangle up around her. It was bright, almost blinding the way she completely ignored everything around her in favor of figuring out what had happened to them. "Dude, we've been here for, like, ten hours. School's tomorrow and I've got homework to do."

"But homework's so boring!" she groaned, pushing herself up onto her feet and looking around at the darkening lot, "We could keep testing out what we can break through with our fists. Bare knuckle, like real boxers."

"In case you hadn't noticed," Peter said, spreading his split knuckles out for her to see, "We've already done that. And I really can't believe you talked me into it."

"You were into it," she teased, swinging her arms from side to side to get the rubble off her tattered sleeves, "Besides, isn't all this more important than high school? Seriously, we're- we're freaks of nature! Brand new discoveries and we're the ones who get to figure it all out."

The curly haired boy couldn't stop himself from smiling over at her- she was infectious like this. It was weird, off putting. He shuffled just a few inches away, nothing too obvious but enough to put a little distance between them. "Yeah, it's pretty cool."

"It's fantastic!" the blonde cheered, hopping up on her toes and gripping her wrists hard.

"You almost broke your whole arm," Peter pointed out, unable to keep the barest traces of a smile off his lips, "You really should stop trying to catch yourself."

She fixed him with a look, eyes squinting daringly. "How else am I gonna figure out how much force my new super bones can take?"

Peter chuckled, lips pressed together in a smile. "What if we called it a night? May and Ben are expecting me back in, like, thirty minutes anyway. It's a school night."

Rolling her eyes hard, Frankie crossed her arms and groaned. "Fine. Whatever. You're still a loser."

"That's fine," the boy shrugged, snatching up his backpack before the two fell in step next to each other.

It didn't take long to make it back to the apartment building. Peter spent the whole time cradling his busted knuckles but couldn't wipe the smile from his face. But he did pay attention- not to the girl beside him, but the sounds of the city around him. Far off sirens, a couple yelling at each other in the bodega across the street. Things that made him nervous, things that made him wonder how the girl beside him could stand all the noise. Of course, the thoughts had to be broken by Frankie as she bounced around at his side.

"I planted a mini jelly bomb in your locker."

Peter whipped his head around, brows pulling together. "What?"

"I can't go soft on you," she shrugged him off, tugging her cap over her plugged ears, "People will start to notice, ask questions. Don't think MJ won't notice if I stop bitching at you- which I never had any plans to stop doing."

"Comforting," he drawled back, pushing back his hair from his brows, "So MJ's your friend?"

The boy watched as Frankie tilted her head to the side slightly like she had to think about it. "I mean… kinda. Maybe. We can stand each other, we're each other's partners in most projects. And we don't really have a lot of other options, so… yeah. Friend adjacent."

"You don't have friends?"

Frankie glared up at him- he really enjoyed the fact that he was taller now- and her lips curled back into a sneer. "Why would I want to associate with the morons in our school?"

"Because friends are nice," Peter bit back.

She waved him off, turning her eyes back in front of her. "Whatever. Too much hassle."

"That explains a lot about-"

BANG!

Before Peter could even react, Frankie had already grabbed hold of him and thrown him against a wall as if to pull him out of the way. He quickly reached out and grabbed her as well, trying to grab her attention.

"Get out of the-"

"Frankie- Frankie!" he insisted, grabbing hold of her shoulders, "That wasn't close to us."

"But-" she stammered, hands going up to her ears, "I thought…"

Peter pointed down the street, keeping hold of her gaze. "It was several streets down. Not close at all."

"But it- it sounded…" she drifted off, her eyes falling down as if she was listening closely to something.

"What is it?" the boy asked, suddenly growing nervous, "Did- did someone get hurt? Do we need to help or- or do something?"

"No one's hurt."

"What?"

"She got away," Frankie clarified, rubbing at her temples and looking down the street, "The lady who got shot at. She ran into a- a bodega or something. The mugger's running off."

Peter followed her gaze, trying in vain to see if anyone was running in their direction. What could he have done? That thought dug its way into the boys head, seeping its way into his thoughts. He could have done… something. He had the ability to do something and so did the girl next to him. But-

"We should head back," Frankie's voice cut off his thoughts, her hand tugging on his sleeve to pull him down the last block before they got back to their building.

The ride up to Frankie's floor was quiet, Peter's thoughts still on that street corner. What could he have done? Should he have done something? But when he looked over to Frankie to ask her, she didn't seem to be thinking about it at all. Instead, her eyes were bouncing around, fingers tapping against her hip like she had no outlet for her energy.

"Should we have…" Peter tried, pulling her attention for a second, "Should we have gone after that guy?"

"And gotten ourselves shot?" the candy haired girl scoffed, swiping a stray hair up into her cap, "No. The woman was safe anyway. Not much to do."

"But he might do it again," he insisted, "Don't you care about that?"

Her green eyes moved over to him, her fingers still tapping a constant, erratic beat on her hip. "What are you suggesting, Parker? I'm a heartless bitch?"

"No-"

"You wouldn't be the first."

"I'm just-" he tried again as the doors slid open on Frankie's floor and he stepped out with her, "We have this- this thing. And we can use it to help people-"

"Parker," she cut him off, coming to a stop in front of her door and looking back up at him, "I'm not playing out your Avenger's fantasy, okay? We don't even know what this thing is, so let's not go getting ourselves shot trying to be knockoff Captain America and Black Widow. Sound good?"

Peter's lips pressed together tight, his eyes going down in annoyance. He didn't understand her complete indifference, why she didn't want to do something good with what had happened to them. As his thoughts bubbled up, he noticed a piece of paper sticking out of her backpack as she fished around for her keys. He noticed and extensive amount of notes surrounding what looked like an interesting blueprint.

"What's that?" he asked, pointing towards the paper.

She followed his finger to see what he was pointing at, shrugging. "Plans for this- it's stupid anyway."

"I'll tell you if it's stupid," Peter responded, still intersted.

She looked back at him, totally not believing him. But, surprisingly, she opened up her mouth to explain. "It's a schematic for a cauterization device. I thought- I don't know, I could rework it so it could help me stick to the walls since it already molded to the human hand."

She looked up at him like she was ready to be laughed at, but Peter wasn't laughing. No, instead he looked rather impressed. "That's… really freakin' cool."

Her brows pulled together, completely confused. "Really?"

"Yeah!" he said with a small smile on his face, "That's smart. At least, until the whole sticky thing kicks in, might as well figure out how to keep up with me."

"You're a dick."

"At least I can climb walls."

Just as she was about to respond, the door to Frankie's apartment swung open to reveal a tired looking Charlie glaring out at them from the other side. Peter hadn't actually spoken to Frankie's older brother since he was in middle school when he'd pushed the smaller boy up against the wall in the hallway when he thought it'd be funny to pour his Capri Sun all over Peter's head. The Hart siblings had at least one thing in common- they enjoyed making Peter miserable.

"The fuck are you two yapping about out here?" he groaned, rubbing at his wild hair and glaring down at his sister.

"Project," she quipped back, a slow smile spreading over her face as she shoved her backpack higher up on her shoulder, "Brainstorming ran long."

"You missed dinner," the taller boy pointed out, not taking his glare off of his sister.

She snorted. "If you're the one who cooked it, I'm relieved."

"Yeah…" Charlie muttered, eyeing his sister warily, "Sure. Whatever."

Peter watched as the blonde skipped past her brother, totally indifferent to his sour look. He couldn't stop the small, soft laugh that spilled from his lips. It was amusing at the very least. No one could say the Hart siblings weren't entertaining up close. But when Charlie turned his harsh look to Peter, the laugh died on his lips and he gulped nervously. It didn't matter if he had super strength, Charlie Hart was still the most intimidating boy he knew. And he knew it, too. Seeing Peter pale made him smirk down at him.

"Don't get used to it," he chuckled with very little humor, nodding his head in the direction Frankie had gone, "She's on an upswing."

The smaller boy felt his brows pull together. "Excuse me?"

Charlie leaned down, drawing out his words like he was explaining it to a very dull child. "She's all bright and shiny right now. But she'll be back to her pissy self in a few days. It's what she does."

Peter didn't know why he felt a twist in his chest, but he didn't like the way Charlie talked about Frankie. He'd never liked the boy anyway, and he'd definitely never like the way he saw him talk to his sister. "Maybe you don't know her that well."

"Parker," he scoffed, a brief look of offence flashing across his face, "I know her better than anyone. Now go back home and- I don't know, bake cookies or whatever boring ass sitcom shit you do at home."

"Shut up, Charlie," he said without thinking, glaring up at the brunette.

The taller boy straightened up, sharp features suddenly much more intimidating. "What did you just say?"

"N-nothing," Peter squeaked, feeling his cheeks heat up with embarrassment over the way he'd stammered out the word.

He expected Charlie to punch him, or at least insult him further. But something else happened- he just shook his head. He looked tired as he pointed towards the elevator. "Go home, Parker."

Peter didn't need to be told twice, spinning on his heel and scrambling towards the stairs instead. He heard the door slam behind him as he ran into the stairwell and down towards his floor. But after only two flights, he slowed down. Looking back up towards Frankie's floor, he felt something tugging at his brain again. The image of the blonde's blueprint was intriguing. Carefully checking for any security cameras, he slid his own backpack off and pulled out a notebook and pen, head already flooding with ideas of what he could make to improve his control. To help people.

Frankie listened as her brother slammed the door on Peter, not particularly concerned with it. It was Charlie after all, no one would actually tell him to fuck off. He'd do what he wanted and everyone else would just deal with it. Instead, she made her way into her own room and threw her backpack down on her bed. Cordelia padded over and wrapped herself around her ankles softly. Carefully, she pulled out the sticky and sickly red earplugs from her ears, not bothering to look at them as she threw them in her trashcan.

Without much warning, she heard her door squeak open, making her turn around and see her brother glaring at her from the other side.

"How long on this one, huh?" he asked condescendingly.

Frankie glared right back, her lips pressed into a tight frown. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"How long are you gonna be on the upswing this time?" he clarified harshly, "Because it would be nice to have some warning."

"Is it a crime not to be miserable?" she asked, squaring her shoulders and tightening her jaw.

Charlie opened his mouth like he was going to answer, but nothing came out. His face fell slightly, softening up in a way Frankie was sure he never let anyone see. At least not voluntarily.

"Just..." he sighed, grabbing onto the door handle again and stepping back as if he was about to leave, "Give me some warning or something, okay?"

"About me being out so late?" she questioned, genuinely becoming confused.

Her brother shook his head, his lips pulling down into a hard frown. "Whatever, Frankie."

With that, he shut the door and stomped his way over to his own room. The sounds rattled around the otherwise empty apartment, leaving very little sound in its wake. The silence of her own room suddenly felt... heavy. Not so harsh, but deep. The girl looked around, the lights of the city bleeding in through her window and cutting through the shadows inside. Slowly, she untangled her ankles from her cat and walked over to her window and just... listened.

People yelled, cried, screamed. It was chaos, like no one cared enough to stop anything. And no one did. Cops were basically useless around this neighborhood. And it's not like the spandexed freaks uptown were going to come down to stop someone from mugging one woman- even if there was a gun on her. Frankie's mind flashed back to the bang that rang through her ears, the scream that had pierced her eardrums earlier. No one could help that woman- not even her. She was useless. Pointless.

That thought sunk deep into her mind, weighing the young girl down. She felt it tug her down, barely enough energy to keep her standing. So she gave in, sinking down onto her back on the cold floor beneath her. She stared up, watching the harsh yellow begin to mix with the red and blue flashing lights of a cop car below mix with the shadows on her walls.

She didn't know why all this anger was coming back up- like bile, like sickness. But as suddenly as it had disappeared from her mind it had come back.

Fuck Charlie. Fuck him and his stupid martyr complex.

It is a rule that what goes up must eventually fall back down. And Frankie Hart was no exception.