The Weight of Us ｡ Peter Parker [3]

3 - Friends of Spider-Man

Life could never stay the same, as much as we tried to make it so, everything kept on spinning. Earth kept circling the golden sun and night always followed day and the moon would continue its never ending cycle and the tides would always follow back to the shore. Life was a continuous loop, and everything kept on shifting, growing, adapting. Not one single thing in life could stay the same forever, that was impossible. Everything expect the fact that Peter Parker could never be on time. 

Seconds had turned to minutes and my irritation was being layered thick in the back of my mind. My eyes kept dropping to the phone nested in my palm and each time another moment passed onto another, my head sung a familiar worried tune. Where the hell was he? What if something had happened? Something terrible? What if another giant alien space ship had dropped into the atmosphere and Peter Parker had taken it upon himself to jump aboard? What if he wasn't coming home? Again. 

Pushing away the game of What-If, I traveled up and down the narrow hallway again. My heels clicked on the grubby flooring and my eyes landed on the frosted glass door that waited at the very end of the shadowed hallway of Mary Jane Watson's new apartment building found deep within Hell's Kitchen. I had visited this very apartment building so many times before, always spotting the door which read Alias Investigations, but not once had I thought too much about the idea that my best friend lived down the hall from a private investigator. Not until I needed to fill my mind with numbness while waiting for my boyfriend who really needed a brand new wrist watch, or a tracking app, or something, for him to make a promised appointment on time. 

Haunted yelling erupted from behind one of the doors behind me and it had my heart racing loudly in my ears. My fingers tilted my phone screen again, clocking the time. Thankfully, the ding of the elevator sounded and out popped Peter Parker, panting softly and shoving his old red and blue Spider-Man suit deep within his backpack. 

"Sorry, I'm late." Peter was greeting me. "Why am I always so late?"

He fell into the space beside me and my hands fiddled with a tie I had borrowed from my father's wardrobe. Peter leaned his head forward and I threaded the tie around his neck. There was a faint bruise near his temple from a rumble last week with a bunch of hooded criminals but a part from that, he looked mostly clean and shaven. Exactly how Mary Jane liked her dinner dates. "What was it this time?" I questioned quietly. 

Peter sighed, watching my fingers weave out a perfect half Windsor knot. "Actually, I helped shoo away some bullies that were hassling this kid in Harlem. They broke his windmill project, so I stayed behind to make sure it worked perfectly." 

"Do you think he'll get an A?" I smiled softly. "The kid?"

A soft pinkness tinted Peter's cheeks. "Well, yeah. I helped him after all and we both know I'm top of the class."

I poked him in the side gently. "So modest." 

Peter shook his head and took the time to let his eyes run up and down my body. "Are you dressing up for somebody? A boyfriend, perhaps?" 

Once upon a time, Peter Parker could not get the words pretty and nice out of his mouth, in one full sentence around me, but now there was a familiar confidence that had occurred with the years of our relationship and the nature of being New York's beloved Spider-Man. "How'd you guess?" I joked, brushing some lint from his shoulders and making sure he looked presentable. "I'm meeting him after our dinner for a romantic stroll in the park. Did you want to come?"

"What's his name? Maybe I know him."

Swiftly turning away from him, my fist knocked on the door of number four. "You do, his name's Clayton."