Harry wiped some sweat off of his forehead and continued down the stairs to his father.
"Calm down, Harry, act natural. Everything will be fine," whispered Venom.
Harry took a long, deep breath and hesitantly approached his father, Norman Osborn.
"Ah, it's good to see you Harry. Do you know why I've called you down here?"
Harry nervously shook his head and replied, "No, why?"
Norman smiled and put his hand on Harry's shoulder. "Why? Well, you know what time of the year it is. Christmas will be here soon and I've gotten you a very special present. You know that movie Spider-Man Rocks 2?"
"Yeah, isn't that going to be released next year?"
"I just happened to get five tickets for a private, early viewing on Christmas Eve. Maybe you and four of your friends could go see it together. I would go too, but action movies just aren't my type."
Norman handed Harry the tickets then walked away to the kitchen. Harry tightly clutched the tickets to his chest and sighed with immense relief.
"I told you, Harry, he doesssn't sssussspect a thing."
"You know I doubted you the whole time. But it seems you can be truthful sometimes, or it was plainly a lucky guess."
Venom chuckled softly and hissed, "You'd better go decide who to invite to this strange movie."
"Judging by how bad the story line, special effects, and acting all were in the first one, and that sequels are always bad, I understand why my dad didn't want to go."
Harry went back to his room to think about who he would invite.
Zim woke up at 7:00 a.m. which was unusual to do on a Saturday. Saturdays were for sleeping in and relaxing and having fun staying up all night. Either Zim knew no such thing or he didn't enjoy those activities as much as humans did.
He looked at himself in the mirror and the memory of discovering that Peter was Spider-man hit him like a rifle bullet. Zim especially remembered forgetting his disguise. He quickly put it on and got dressed.
Zim found no one downstairs and a small handwritten note on the table. It read:
Went skiing with the girls for the weekend. Will be back Sunday night. I left food in the fridge and some money in the drawer just in case. See you soon. Hugs and kisses. –Aunt May
Zim shivered at the 'hugs and kisses' part. He knew this note was obviously for Peter so he put it back down on the table.
Suddenly he heard footsteps and Peter came walking wearily down that stairs. He yawned and scratched his butt.
Zim, "I think this is for you."
Zim handed the note to Peter and looked in the fridge even though he knew he wouldn't find anything edible in there.
Peter read the note and smiled. "Cool, got the whole weekend to myself!"
Zim sighed and closed the fridge. Peter looked over at Zim and said, "What are you looking for?"
"It's…hard to explain. I might have left it upstairs."
Peter shrugged and began to put mini waffles in the toaster.
Zim looked through his bag and pulled out what looked like a yellow pudding cup.
"Ah, there it is."
He pulled off the lid, got some of the yellow goop on his finger, and ate it off of his finger.
"Mmm, delicious."
Zim smiled and walked downstairs with his cup of yellow goop. He found Peter eating a stack of mini waffles with butter, syrup, jam, and peanut butter on them. He kept himself from gagging and looked away for a second.
Zim sat down next to Peter and continued to eat his extremely tasty yellow goop. Peter looked over at him and exclaimed with a mouth full of food, "What is that!?"
Zim rolled his eyes and said, "It's food that I can eat."
"You can't eat human food?"
"No, it makes me sick and all kinds of other horrible, unspeakable things."
"Oh…okay." He continued eating his mini waffles and Zim continued eating his weird goopy stuff.
Dib smiled as soon as he was off of that wretched plane. He was just a little scared of heights, but mostly when he was on unstable structures or riding in unstable vehicles such as old planes.
Dib flagged down a taxi as soon as he got his luggage and went to a very fancy resort that his dad was a member of. As soon as he was at the resort he checked into his room and laid down on his king-sized bed.
"Finally, I'm off of that stupid plane."
Dib smiled and sat up. He walked over to the window and took in the amazing view of the resort's outdoor pool and all of New York. It was about 7 or 8 o'clock at night so all of the bright lights were on. Dib found a radio and turned on some music then pulled out his laptop. He set it on the desk and turned it on.
"Now I just have to find out where Zim is. He'll probably be at his school on Monday but it wouldn't hurt to know where he lives, too."
Dib began hacking into the school data base and found several locations where Zim could possibly be staying. He narrowed it down to two relatively close locations and wrote them down on a map.
Dib spent the rest of the night swimming in the fancy pool then watched TV and finally went to bed.
-The rest of the weekend had absolutely no significance and was rather boring.-
Zim couldn't tell if it was Peter's knowledge of him being an alien or something following him making him feel edgy today. It was a Monday so he was a little cranky but something just didn't feel right. He refused to shrug it off so he walked through the hallway on high alert.
Peter went over to talk to Harry and MJ so Zim continued to his locker near the end of the hallway which was mostly vacant. He switched out some books and prepared himself for math homework after school, which was extremely easy since he was an Irken who could do page long math formulas mentally.
He heard a strangely familiar footstep behind him and he quickly turned around. Zim's eyes met with those of the person making the footsteps and they glared at each other for a minute.
"Dib, what are you doing here?"
"I came to make sure you didn't reign terror down onto your new classmates."
"You got beat up by those kids you saved from me, didn't you?"
"Almost, but I got away unharmed. And how did you know?"
"I figured they might be after you since one of them was a vampire and you're always stalking the supernatural types. So what are you really doing here, Dib? Are you going to beg for me to come back? Or are you going to try to expose me as an alien at this school instead?"
Dib gritted his teeth and replied, "Neither, school is just a bit less entertaining without you around and most of the supernatural types are less active or harder to find during the cold winter. You seemed like a good plan B."
"Plan B? I thought I was at the top of the list since I'm a threat to the Earth."
"It's been so long since you came here, Zim, and still you're not even relatively close to conquering us. Did you give up or are you plans just that bad?"
Zim growled, dropped his backpack, and grabbed Dib's neck. He then held him against the wall and said menacingly, "That's only because this particular plan takes time. It takes a lot of time and careful planning, Dib. But once you realize what it is it will be far too late to stop it."
Dib tried to pull Zim's hand off his neck, but it wasn't working at all. Suddenly the school Principal glared at Zim and crossed his arms. Zim reluctantly let go of Dib and picked up his backpack. Dib giggled when he noticed the Principal.
"Yeah, you're some bad ass, Zim."
"Fuck off, Dib-stink; I'm only letting this go until the bell rings. You have that long to run and hide because once that bell rings, I will find you."
"You're beginning to sound a lot like my sister."
"Good, because that's who I was trying to imitate."
Dib smiled, realizing how much he had missed this arrogant alien.
"I'd better run away so you don't quote-and-quote 'kick my ass'."
"Just a minute more and I can kick you sorry excuse for an ass."
Zim smirked and cracked his knuckles. The bell rang and Dib took off running faster than you can say (insert tongue twister here.)
Zim chuckled under his breath and followed closely behind him.
Peter, Harry, and Mary Jane noticed Zim running after some kid with black, scythe shaped hair and round glasses down the hallway. Mary Jane giggled and said to Peter, "Who did your new friend just go running after?"
Peter smiled and shrugged. "I honestly wish I knew. Zim doesn't really talk about his hometown or about any of his friends either."
"He probably doesn't have any," Harry muttered quietly to himself.
MJ looked at the time on her cellphone and sighed. "I'd better get going. With the homework load they're giving out these days I'll be lucky to finish by 9:00 along with eating and showering."
Peter frowned and said, "Well, if you need any help with homework you can ask me."
MJ smiled and pushed a stray piece of hair behind her ear awkwardly. "I probably won't need any help, but thank you for offering." She looked over at Harry and waved. "Good bye, you two. See you later."
She walked down the hallway and out the doors leaving Peter and Harry by the lockers. Peter noticed that Harry looked a bit strange. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something was wrong. He physically looked the same as always but his presence felt…different, maybe uninviting?
"Are you okay, Harry?"
Harry looked up at Peter and forced a fake smile. "Never better, why?"
"You've been really quiet today."
Harry sighed and put his hand in his pocket. "I know, I've just been wondering about...certain things."
"Like what?"
Harry shook his head a bit and took a deep breath. "Do you have feelings for her?"
Peter blushed and replied uneasily, "For who?"
"Mary Jane."
Peter could see Harry was trying to hold back a lot of strong emotions.
He looked Harry in the eyes and truthfully replied, "Yes, I do, Harry. And I know that you used to like her too, but I didn't realize that you still did."
"I'm sorry." Harry tried to hold back burning tears as he spoke to Peter.
He began to walk away, but stopped after walking about 20 feet away from Peter. Peter walked over to him and was about to put his hand on Harry's shoulder, but retracted his hand knowing how badly that would end.
"I'm here. And I know that you don't want to speak with me right now, but I could still walk home with you if you want."
Harry nodded and covered his most of his face with his hand.
"Probably trying to hide his tears," Peter thought to himself.
But Harry wasn't hiding his tears for he wasn't really sad. Yes, he was hurt, but not sad for he knew Peter would say 'yes' so he had been expecting this. What he was really hiding was his sneering face from Peter.
"Very clever, Harry, very clever indeed. You have fooled thisss ignorant friend of yoursss quite well. I mussst admit that I am impressed," Venom hissed softly to him.
Harry couldn't tell if Venom was being sarcastic or actually complimenting him for once. It didn't matter. Peter wouldn't be bothering him for a while so his little plan would work out perfectly.