The last plane Peter had been on had crashed spectacularly, but that was because there'd been a supervillain messing with the engines and turbines. This one, full of people, reminded him almost of a train- except, of course, in the sky. And Katya wasn't risking her life to fly it this time.
Ned and Peter were already in their seats, which he was grateful for- at least he got to sit next to Ned- but it was a two seater, and he'd been hoping the three of them could sit together.
"Hey, Parker!" Flash called from where he was standing in First Class, a glass of champagne in his hands. "This is called an airplane. It's like the buses you're used to, except it flies over the poor neighborhoods, instead of driving through them."
Fuck this guy-
"Ma'am!" Katya called to the nearest flight attendant without missing a beat as she filed through towards her own seat, "He blipped, so he's technically 16, not 21."
The flight attendant nodded and smoothly removed the glass of champagne from Flash's hands. He balked. "She's lying, I don't even know this girl-"
Katya gave a small mocking wave as she continued to file through, before shooting Peter and Ned a smirk. She glanced down at her ticket and the seat numbers above their heads to match up where she was supposed to go, and her smirk wavered. Peter could tell she disappointed as well, but masked it easily enough to any passerby, and continued walking down the aisle.
"Classic Katya, right?" Brad Davis, a kid who hadn't blipped and was now a senior, laughed to them as he followed in line behind her. Something in Peter's stomach twisted.
"It's so weird," Ned voiced what he was thinking once Brad's back was to them. "Like, one day he's that little kid who cried and got nosebleeds all the time and then suddenly, we blipped back and he's totally ripped and super nice, and all the girls are after him-"
Peter watched as Brad helped Katya stow away her duffel bag, the spot in the compartment being too far for her to reach on her own, the frustration of which showed plainly on her face. Peter knew she'd rather have found a way to climb up than have anyone help her. "-not all the girls are after him."
"No, man, they're all after him." Ned turned on his tablet. "Anyway, onto more important things- it's a nine hour flight, so we can play Beastslayers the whole time-"
Peter glanced back to where Katya had ultimately ended up sitting, further back on the plane next to Betty, and only one row away from Brad. Peter knew her well enough to know she looked annoyed- which helped calm his stomach- but was fronting for everyone else. He turned back to Ned.
"I need your help sitting next to Katya."
Ned sighed. "Seriously?"
"Yes, seriously!"
"But you guys have your whole special-" Ned waggled his fingers, "connection, you can't be apart for nine hours?"
Peter actually took a second to consider this. Between everything they did together, and their Facetimes every night, he wasn't actually sure if they had gone nine hours without one another. "C'mon, man. Please."
Ned sighed, and stood up, scaling back the couple of rows that separated them and Katya and Betty.
"Hey, guys, there's this lady sitting in front of us who's wearing a crazy amount of perfume, and it's kind of setting off Peter's allergies- you know, Brad if you could just switch seats with him-"
Brad just looked at him. "Peter's allergic to perfume?" His tone was almost defensive.
'Yeah, yeah, because, erm, it- makes his eyes water, and he can't really-"
Mr. Harrington's face popped up from the row in front of them. "You said Peter has a perfume allergy?
Ned blanked. "Oh, er-"
Mr. Harrington unbuckled his seat immediately and stood up. "I"ll tell you from experience, perfume allergies are no joke- I can feel hives breaking out already- Betty, you take Peter's spot, Brad, come take Betty's spot, Sebastian come take my spot, Zach take Brad's spot, and Peter, let's get you out of there-"
No no no no no, this is not what Peter had intended-
"Ned, thank you for bringing this to my attention. Your safety is my responsibility, and Mr. Dell's but he's-" they all glanced back to where Mr. Dell was already passed out, clearly having taken some sort of sedative. "Erm, I got it for now. Let's go Peter, let's get you out of there!"
Peter begrudgingly grabbed his backpack and headed towards the back of the plane with Mr. Harrington, where he got stuck in the middle seat of the middle row. And now Katya was sitting directly next to Brad. Goddamit, Ned.
"I have a small bladder, so I took the aisle seat." Mr. Harrington told Peter, as if he wanted an explanation. All he could focus on was watching Katya's blonde ponytail whip back and forth as she talked to Brad, who'd pulled out his own tablet.
She's just fronting, he reminded himself. He knew Katya better than that. Better than to ever be jealous. They had something more than a nine-hour long flight could ever change.
"Did I tell you how my wife pretended to blip out?" Mr. Harrington continued to babble from beside him. "Turns out she ran off with a guy from our hiking group- we had a fake funeral and everything, although I thought the funeral was real because I thought she was dead-"
From the few rows in front of them Peter could hear Brad Davis say, "I've got a dual headphone adapter if you want to watch something."
"Only if it's got explosions. Or it's hilarious." Her voice was flat, but Brad laughed anyway.
"Oh, you've got a dual headphone adapter!" Mr. Harrington's voice brought Peter back, and he realized he was holding it in his lap. He'd bought it specifically for him and Katya to use. "We can watch the funeral video together-"
The rest of the flight passed that way, Peter continuously glancing at how uncomfortably close Brad and Katya had to lean in to watch the same screen- they must've picked something funny, because Katya was laughing the whole time- as Mr. Harrington eventually- thankfully- fell asleep next to him. If Brad hadn't been laughing too, Peter knew it could have also been an action movie, and Katya was picking apart all the things that were unrealistic and laughing at them, as she loved to do- but the both of them seemed to be having a good time. Peter shifted in his seat uncomfortably.
This was nothing. This was nine hours. And Peter knew what he and Katya shared was more special than nine hours.
When they finally landed- Mr. Harrington had fallen into such a deep sleep that he'd ended up on Peter's shoulder- Peter stood up immediately as the plane began to disembark, despite the fact that him being in one of the last rows meant that he wasn't going to be able to catch up to Katya yet.
Instead he caught Ned first. "Bro, did you see Katya and Brad on the plane? They were like, watching movies and laughing the entire time-" He did not like the way this made him feel. There was absolutely no reason to be jealous- he knew how secure they were, this was just a blip-
Okay, bad choice of words, but still.
"Dude, don't worry, okay? I'm sure that's nothing."
"Hey Babe?" Betty Brandt came up to them and handed a bag to Ned. "Could you hold this for me please?"
"Yeah, of course!"
"Thanks." She grinned and kissed him on the cheek before disappearing back into the crowd. Peter balked.
"What the hell was that?!"
Ned smiled self-satisfactorily. "Erm, well, she and I got to talking on the plane and it turns out we actually have a lot in common. So, er, we're boyfriend and girlfriend now."
"Whatever happened to your plan to being an American bachelor in Europe?" Peter asked, referring to the sentiment Ned had not stopped talking about since the science trip had been announced. Ned put an arm on Peter's shoulder seriously.
"Peter, those were the words of a boy. And that boy met a woman. A very strong, and powerful woman. And now, that boy's a man. A lot can happen in nine hours."
Peter could barely stop himself from facepalming.
"Babe?" Betty's voice floated from somewhere within the crowd.
"Coming!" Ned called back, before disappearing into the throng.
Peter scanned the crowd looking for Katya's ponytail and found it near the front of the line for customs, beside Brad Davis, which Peter pushed his way to.
"Katya!" He called, almost too relieved, and she whipped her head around. At their eye contact, she grinned, and threw her arms around him, but Peter pulled back and made sure to give her a long, hard kiss- right in front of Brad, just in case. The twisting in his stomach went away a little, but he didn't like that it was still there at all, a sinister sinew he didn't recognize.
Katya pulled away, giggling. "What was that for?"
He pulled her closer to him by the waist. "I just missed you, is all." He chanced a glance at Brad's face, which had steeled, and he turned away. Perfect.
But of course Peter got flagged at customs by a sniffer dog, and was pulled aside for a bag check. To his horror, when the lady unzipped his suitcase, his Spiderman suit lay there, in full view, with a post -it from Aunt May- You almost forgot this!
Peter panicked, and wasn't sure what to do with his face. The lady seemed unfazed, though, and continued to dig through his suitcase until she found a banana. 'These? No." She said simply, and confiscated it.
He quickly zipped his suitcase back up before anybody else could see and ran to catch up with the rest of his class, where Katya had apparently been assigned as unofficial translator, translating all the signs to where baggage claim and the exits were.
"Sorry, sorry- Peter panted as he finally caught up with them. "I'm here, I'm here-"
"Oh thank goodness." Mr. Harrington said with a frazzled relief that sounded much too exhausted for this early on the trip.
Katya helped direct the rest of them through the airport until they could get on their bus, which was waiting, to transfer them to the boat that would take them to the hotel.