About an hour later, the two of them happen upon Lee's apartment once again. Suit covered and hidden from view by a baggy sweatshirt and jeans that Aunt May would never have allowed him to wear on any date, much less a first date, Peter shuffles into the flat behind Lee, still held in momentary awe, as he was the first time he came here, by her privacy. A one room apartment with tall windows and no one around for a thousand square feet. It's like something out of any New Yorker's dream. With Peter following at her heels, Lee heads into the kitchen, determined to salvage the night. She knows what S.H.I.E.L.D. did. They staged some sort of petty crime in order to force Peter to reveal his secret, which leaves her feeling slimy and itchy all at once. But, what's done is done, and now she has to try and make the best of a life spiraling out of control.
"You hungry?" She asks, opening the fridge door and checking inside.
Lee is almost positive she went to the grocery on the next block over earlier this week. Surely, she did not eat all of the frozen pizzas and nearly all the snacks in a matter of a few days. But, as she goes through the fridge, freezer, pantry, and snack drawer, it appears that staying up until four in the morning on the regular to sketch and craft new mock-ups of an improved Mark Seven Iron-Man suit, like the one she was tinkering with in her father's storage unit that evening, has not done wonders for her diet. The choices for supper are slim and she suddenly feels that perhaps they should have gone to that pretentious Thai restaurant in The Village after all.
"Always," Peter says, helping himself to one of the barstools lining the opposite side of the kitchen counter, giving himself an excellent seat from which to view Lee's floorshow.
Digging in the pantry for something edible that wasn't Cap'n Crunch cereal, Lee raises an eyebrow. She knows so much about Peter, but there are natural questions that she can piece together to fill in the gaps in the S.H.I.E.L.D. research.
"Is that a side effect of the mutation, or-?" She trails off.
Unable to help himself, Peter grabs an apple off of the counter and bites into it with a satisfied crunch. He speaks as he chews, a habit he hasn't been able to break himself from, no matter how often Aunt May reminds him that it's impolite.
"Yeah. It is. Thank God Aunt May believes that growing boys should never stop eating or I'd be made for sure," he says, joking as he shrugs off the issue.
Another easy question bubbles to Lee's lips as she finds the fresh loaf of bread, which she managed to stuff into the farthest, back corner of the pantry for some unthinkable reason. It is apparent to Peter, as he watches her struggle through the kitchen that she herself organized, that her neat and tidy school persona does not seem to stretch into her home organizational skills.
"So, she doesn't know?" Lee asks of Aunt May, though she already knows the answers.
Questions without answers are the hardest ones to hear, but questions with known answers are the most maddening ones to ask. Peter shakes his head as he swallows another bite of the half-finished apple in his hand.
"I don't think so. I hope not," he responds.
Lee slams the bread on the counter in triumph.
"Why don't you want her to know?" She asks, genuinely curious, though she thinks she can probably guess at his reasonings.
Of all the questions Lee has ever posed to him, this is the one that Peter has the most ready answer to. It's kept him up at night, tossing and turning as he weighs the cost of his duty with the thought of Aunt May's knowledge of it. On the one hand, if she ever finds out, she will probably not hesitate to murder him in his sleep for keeping something so massively important from her. But, on the other hand...
"It puts her in more danger. The more people who know, the more people who can be hurt," he says, confident that the chunk of his life dedicated to determining this one little truth could have saved her life.
What he doesn't realize, at least not as he's saying it, is that his words basically translate to: If you know my secret, you're in danger. So, Lee, you're basically screwed here. Lee catches that interpretation almost instantly and shrugs, smirking sadly to herself as she thinks of what danger really means to her lately. A giant threat is looming toward New York City and the outcome of a fight with him seems to be resting on her relationship with the endearing and earnest boy sitting across from her. That's more than enough danger for her to handle, more than enough resting on her shoulders, but still, she has the guts to say:
"Well, I laugh in the face of danger."
Peter raises an eyebrow and throws the apple core in the trash.
"Oh, do you now?" He teases.
Lee nods and a smug smile crosses her face as she leans in toward Peter, close enough that he feels her warm, spearmint gum breath on his lips.
"Yeah. Ha-ha-ha-ha. See?" She questions.
But the reflected look of surprise in Peter's eyes draws the image of what she has done into her mind. They're close enough to kiss and she's the one who wandered there. It was all supposed to be a bit of a laugh, but Lee suddenly feels awkward and stinted. Stepping away and putting a hand to her hair in embarrassment, she looks at the floor. Peter clears his throat as a red hot flush creeps up his neck.
"Sorry. That was too close."
"Don't apologize," he chokes out before he can think better of it. God, he really should have just kissed her. Again, he coughs to dispel some of the tension, "I'm the one who should be sorry."
Confusion reigns in Lee's mind as she furrows her brow and turns her eyes from the floor to him.
"What for?" She asks, pulling out plates as she begins to slap some sandwiches together like a haphazard 1950's housewife on withdrawal.
Peter's response is immediate. If he hadn't followed that woman's scream, a woman who ran off into the night as soon as she saw him, then he wouldn't have revealed himself to Lee, then he wouldn't have had to ruin their night together. This was supposed to be a new chapter, a new day for Peter Parker, one where he could just be Peter, instead of Spider-Man who sometimes walks around as Peter Parker in order to graduate high school. He was going to try and have something normal. But now, Gwen's words are ringing in his ears. Don't make the same mistake twice. Turns out, she's more prophetic than she ever could have hoped. The same mistakes just seem to pull the strings of the cosmic Peter Parker puppet.
"Ruining our date," he says, settling on that instead of the long-winded answer concocted in his mind.
Shaking her head, Lee cuts the sandwiches in diagonals, creating triangles. She's always liked geometry, even when it just comes down to the shape of her dinner food. After all, dinner at some fancy place in Greenwich Village would have led to awkward first date conversation, a sort of conversation that she only recognizes as a valid affliction from various television series and films that she's collected in her mind over the years.
"This is more fun anyway," she says, handing him a plate.
Picking up her own, she jumps up on the counter, sitting on the black faux marble with her legs crossed. If she were to sit beside Peter, she wouldn't be able to look him in the eye. But up on the counter, she's able to turn and face him plainly.
"Knowing my secret?" He asks, trying to catch her exact meaning.
Lee's stomach tightens at the question and her skin almost instantly ashens to a pasty gray.
"Yeah. About that…" Lee trails off, picking the crust off of her sandwich distractedly.
"What?" Peter asks through a mouthful of sandwich, that awful habit creeping up again.
The air of light-heartedness vanishing, Lee's eyes darken as she approaches this subject with careful reverence. Her voice lowers though there is no one to overhear them and her body tenses as she asks her question.
"Why haven't you asked me to keep your secret yet?" She asks, nervous and honest.
Taken aback, Peter gulps down painfully.
"What d'you mean?" He quips.
Putting her plate aside, suddenly not hungry in the slightest, Lee unloads her feelings about the matter upon him. Guilt scratches at the door of her ribs.
"Well, usually when someone's big secret gets spilled- and, let's be honest, this is just about as big as a secret can get-they usually get all dark, and breathy and mysterious and say you have to swear to keep this secret. No one can know. So, I'm just wondering why you haven't said that to me yet."
Peter almost laughs at the simplicity of her question, its obvious fear and hesitance. Because his answer is as easy as speaking to her about the weather. His eyes meet hers and a big band plays in the back of his mind.
"Because I trust you," he responds.
Oh, but you shouldn't.
"Really?" Lee asks instead of speaking her mind's warning.
The way Peter sees it, there isn't any point to this conversation. She knows that this is a huge secret and betraying it would mean the collapse of his entire life. So, why warn her about it? She's smart enough and loyal enough to not have to be talked down to.
"Are you going to tell anyone?" He asks.
This time, thankfully, Lee is allowed to give the entire truth in a simple word, a word that she is going to keep held tightly to her chest.
"No," she says without hesitation.
It's a vow. And it's one that she can actually keep. There's a sweet relief in that small victory. Peter gives her one more look before shrugging and returning to his sandwich.
"Then I don't have anything to worry about, do I?" He responds.
Though the question is rhetorical and she knows it, Lee is armed with a immediate fireback that would make her father proud. It's supposed to be just another facet of her dry humor, but it comes across a little more menacing than she anticipated.
"Nothing to worry about except me getting killed by someone in order to manipulate and control you," Lee remarks, returning to her sandwich.
A laugh of surprise makes its way out of Peter's lips and he looks up at her with smiling eyes. She never ceases to catch him off guard. It's one of her best and most dizzying qualities.
"Wow. You made that really dark, really fast," he says.
Lee rolls her eyes and lets her sarcasm do the work.
"Reality's what I'm good at."
When their cheap, far-removed from fancy Thai food dinner is finished and the plates are returned to the sink where Lee will, almost certainly not get around to washing them for days, she hops off of the counter and leans back against the nearest wall, giving her best attempt to look like a 1940's film temptress, though her eyes reveal the joke behind it.
"Want to take this to the bedroom?" She purrs, that teasing edge inescapable.
And though he knows it is a joke, Peter cannot deny that the entire moment did things for him. Swallowing back the urge to hold her against the wall and kiss her until they see stars, he merely wraps an arm around her shoulders and leads her down the hall.
"You're moving fast, aren't you?" He questions.
She merely shrugs.
"It wouldn't be the first time I had you in my bed."
"That is wrong on so many levels," he chuckles, shaking his head.
Pushing open the door and tilting her head inside, she deadpans:
"Just get in there, Spidey."
Later that evening, when the clock is blinking a time when they should both be asleep and after hours of nothing but laughing conversation, Peter's voice suddenly gets quiet. On the bed, he lays on his side to look at her as she lays on her back, staring at the ceiling as though it may part and give her a glimpse of the stars.
"Can I ask you a question?" He asks.
Resisting the ever-so tempting urge to retort back with the very mature response of you just did, Lee nods against her pillow, not taking her eyes from the ceiling.
"Sure," she says, knowing that every truth will be edited.
Peter's been thinking a lot about Lee McCarthy. A straight A student who he hasn't seen crack a book. A girl who makes sexual jokes, but jumps away and apologizes when they're close enough to kiss. Enduringly cheerful though her house is empty. She's a contradiction that he can't seem to figure out. She's solid and real and he feels her when their fingers brush, but at the same time, she's as unreachable as the edges of the universe.
"Who are you? Who are you really?" He asks.
Lee's breathing catches up with her pacing heart and her voice audibly tightens, though she keeps her eyes focused heavenward.
"What do you mean?" She responds.
Peter plays with a button on one of her pillowcases, trying to dance around his meaning without making her feel bad or wrong or uncomfortable.
"I mean…I just can't believe you're real. You're a mystery. I just feel like if I turn around, you'll float away or something."
Lee breathes out a sad shadow of a laugh, a hand reaching to tug on the ends of her hair in hidden frustration.
"Or something," she breathes out.
Doing his best to clean up the situation, Peter touches her wrist lightly, a sign of quick comfort.
"Don't get me wrong. The mystery is nice, but I want to actually know you."
With his fingers on her skin, he does not miss the feeling of her pulse quickening.
If Lee weren't involved in this escapade, Bruce would never have agreed to it. It's absurd and invasive and dammit, if he doesn't think Tony Stark is the most unreasonable man he's ever met.
"Is this really necessary, Tony?" He asks.
The unmarked car that they drove from Avengers Tower parks itself across the street from Lee's apartment as Tony fiddles with some of the dials on the dashboard computer. He placed bugs in Lee's apartment ages ago, but never found cause to use them until today. Someone inside S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters told him that Parker and Lee were in her apartment, alone, after he was forced to reveal his Spider-Man identity to her. And, well, that just didn't sit right with Tony. The frequency for the transmitter in her bedroom comes in and he begins to hear Peter and Lee talking. Can I ask you a question? He hears Parker say.
"That's my kid in there-" He tries to defend himself.
But such a defense won't work on Bruce, who has been more of a father to Lee in the last few weeks than Tony has been to her in her entire life. Spying isn't acceptable when it comes to what goes on in her private life. Bruce came on this goose chase in order to keep Tony from doing anything more rash than he already is.
"You won't admit that, though," he barks back, reaching his hand out to turn off the dashboard computer and the audio feed from Lee's apartment.
Tony's hand reaches out without hesitation and slaps his friend's arm before it can cut the feed. His eyes are wild and crazed in that singular Tony Stark way. There is a world of ironies and hypocrisies that Bruce could point out in his friend. The sudden flash of paternal instincts wildly and haphazardly pop up whenever they are convenient are beginning to give him whiplash.
"That's my kid in there with a stupid boy. I was a stupid boy once, and it's the reason Lee's here," Tony fights.
This can only end badly, Bruce knows. Best case scenario, they hear Peter and Lee fooling around and things get uncomfortable. And if that's the best case scenario, Bruce doesn't even want to think about the worst case. From any angle he examines it, this evening turns out bad.
"What're you gonna do if you hear something you don't like?" Bruce asks, honestly a little bit terrified of what his friend might do.
A figure, hidden from view until this moment, rises from the floor space in between the front seat and the back, groaning in frustration as the two men bicker.
"Will you stop talking so loud? I can't hear," Darcy Lewis says, annoyed at the interruption in the conversation between Peter and Lee.
Tony jumps in his seat, looking back to see the young friend of Jane Foster adjusting herself into one of the rear seats.
"What are you doing here?" He asks, incredulously.
The stow-away doesn't faze Bruce as it does Tony, only pausing to look back in his rear view mirror once.
"Oh, hey, Darcy," Bruce calls to her.
Darcy shrugs and looks at Tony with self-depracating interest.
"This is a lot more riveting than watching Jane moan about missing Thor all day. I thought I'd tag along."
She leans forward in her seat, resting an elbow on either one of the front driver's seat shoulders, so her face is perfectly in line with the two older scientists'. Smirking, she looks at Tony, who stares at her with emotional disbelief at her audacity and offers him some of the snacks from the bag in her hand before shoving a handful into her mouth.
"Popcorn?"
Back in the apartment, Lee turns to face Peter, though she doesn't look in his eyes as her voice gets smaller and smaller.
"What do you want to know?" She asks.
Surprised that she gave in so easily, Peter drags the list of questions from his mind and begins spouting them off one by one, firing them out at her like t-shirts at a Nets game. Sure, since he met her, they've talked. But... It always seems to be about him. Or school. Or the world around them. Art, books, science, theory, it's all well and good, but he can't remember the last time she proffered information about herself. About what makes her tick. About what makes her heart race. And it's slowly been driving him crazy.
"Anything. Where you're from. And don't give me that here and there crap you've always given me before. What kind of movies do you watch? What are your parents like? Why are you in this big, empty apartment all alone and how did you get so good at deflecting questions about yourself?"
Lee resents that statement on a personal level.
"I do not deflect," she snaps.
Peter gives her a level look.
"You're literally doing it right now," he responds.
Shit. There's no denying that. Lee gulps and decides that her half-truth can pass for now. Shaking her head, she rattles off answers that she's comfortable giving.
"Right. Sorry. I was born in Milwaukee. I just came from Dallas, but in between, I've lived everywhere from Bermuda to Palo Alto to Georgia. My mother was always looking for new men, so where she went, so did I. I'm living in this apartment alone because I needed to find out who I am without her around. I needed some roots."
Lee always rather admired her mother for her spirit. To her mother, there was always a new horizon to conquer. The best simply wasn't enough for her. She had to have the greatest, which in a man would have been admirable to anyone, but since she was a woman, only her daughter found the faith to admire her for it.
"And your dad?" Peter asks.
It's the question she should have expected, but the question she dreaded answering. In the car across the street, the volume gets turned up at the sound of those three little words. Lee shrugs and takes the easy way around it.
"He was never around," she says, sincerely.
Peter knows that it isn't appropriate to ask, but he does it anyway.
"Why not?" He asks.
She bites her bottom lip and Peter watches at the light in her eyes dims, retreating farther and farther away from him.
"He had another life outside of me. A better one, if I'm being honest," she says without a trace of irony or half-truth.
"Lee, that isn't-" He tries to protest.
A life without Lee McCarthy doesn't seem like a better one to him. But Lee doesn't see it that way, and barrels on. Now that the floodgates are open, she realizes that she's going to have a hard time trying to slam them shut again. It's the most honest she's been with Peter since meeting him, and though she doesn't know it, the very man who she's talking about- along with his best friend and an odd, entertainment starved girl from New Mexico- is listening from an old Chevy half a block away.
"It's so weird, though. Because even though I didn't know him- not in any way that counts, anyway- I did all of these things just hoping that one day he'd show up. Like, I'd be giving a speech and there he'd be in the audience or I would be tinkering with something and he'd walk up behind me and tell me what I was doing wrong."
Peter's heart breaks for her. But she recovers from her honesty and turns to lay on her back again. Her defensive mask slides in place once more; the dust from her emotional moment settles around her.
"But I don't think life is like that, Peter. Not anymore," she says with a shake of her head.
"What do you think life is like?" He asks.
She flashes him a look out of the corner of her eye, smirking half-heartedly.
"A mystery," she says, throwing his word from earlier right back at him.
Knowing he deserved that, he tries once more to get a truth from her lips. Not even beginning to know how much she has been hiding under the surface of her shimmering exterior. Exhaustion is starting to take Peter over, but he tries to fight it.
"So… Have you ever met your dad?"
Lee nods. Another truth. Peter's eyelids begin to droop.
"I tried once. I'm pretty sure I'll never know him."
Settling in deeper under her covers, still fully clothed from their spoiled night out, Peter feels himself dragged closer and closer to sleep.
"Don't fall asleep on me now, Peter, or you may wake up and find an empty bed," Lee jokes.
Eyes closed, Peter smiles.
"You're one of those love-'em and leave 'em types?" He snorts.
"You could say that," she nods, responding with the mystical flair of a magician's assistant, "I like to disappear."
But, even through his foggy, sleep-near haze, Peter shakes his head against the pillow.
"I don't have to worry about that," he says.
"Why not?" Lee questions, genuinely interested in whatever answer a half-awake Peter Parker might give her to this question.
What he says next feels like love. He isn't so sure he'd want to live in a world where she isn't. He's in too deep now to lose her. And perhaps he wouldn't say it if he weren't so tired, but he says it all the same. Lips tilted up in a warm smirk and hand blindly reaching out to brush her hand that is laying beside him on the bed, Peter mutters with a warmth of protection and love that Lee has never felt in her life:
"Because if you disappeared, I'd search until I found you again."
So... Romance! Intrigue! Darcy! Please let me know what you think! And because I missed an update last week because I was in Disney, look forward to another chapter later tonight or tomorrow! Please, please, please review!