the siren |peter parker x siren!oc|

Tranquility: Part 15

Going back to school after the whirlwind that Lena had been through felt strange in a new way, but she had reached a point where she had grown used to strange, new feelings. Compared to the open sea and the cage she had been held captured in, school felt mundane. Walking past regular students, disguising her exhaustion as her typical timid nature made her feel as if there was an invisible mask on her face.

"That's sort of what it is," Peter commented, squeezing her hand.

When she sat down for lunch, everything around her felt unreal and blurry, as if the lights were too bright and everything around her was unfocused. Her surroundings only felt real when MJ sat down and pushed her shoulder in what Lena supposed was a playful way. She took a long blinked and attempted to smile at the other girl.

"Peter said you were sick, feeling better?" MJ spoke in her usual diluted tone.

She chewed on the inside of her lip, "A little bit better."

"Good," MJ pulled a sandwich out of her sack. "Because I'm coming over to your house this weekend."

Lena blinked with surprise at the statement. It was not even a question, from what she had studied, the typical interaction of two people spending time together involved a question, especially when they were not too familiar with each other. Lena and MJ had never spent any exterior time with each other, so this was naturally a shock.

"You are?"

"I mean," the other girl took a bite and swallowed, "You'll have to ask your uncle, I'd assume, but yeah."

Lena was not sure how to answer, and with luck, she was greeted by Ned and Peter sitting down across from them, one shoving each other's shoulder, and a laugh following.

They discussed the upcoming test they had on Their Eyes Were Watching God, MJ destroying the two boys in a steady discussion on the motifs of speech and silence. Based on the way she spoke, and nothing else (MJ was a closed book), Lena could tell that this was MJ's favorite novel that their American Literature class had covered this school year. While Lena liked the novel, she had been having difficulty wrapping her head around the concept of a plot, which was not unusual. Most of the novels that they read in the class were written from the background of human experience. There were countless questions that Lena had asked Peter about minuscule details about each writer's books. The analysis that the English teacher required them to do became easier than understanding the reason why a rich man would throw countless parties in an effort to get the attention of someone who was a long remnant of his past.

"Lena, what are you up to on Friday?" Peter and her had a habit of hanging out on the weekends, but this weekend would be different.

"MJ is going to come over to my house," she said softly, looking at him with a short smile. She could feel the elevation of his mood increase, barely, but it was there. There was a part of Peter that had wanted them to be friends for a long time, and Lena had wanted the same. She needed more friendships than just that of Peter and the rest of her family.

On Thursday night, Lena had cleaned everything in her room until it was perfect, making sure that there was nothing out of place. Typically, she kept her room relatively tidy, but some sort of worry had washed over her and brought her to make sure that everything looked as it should.

Tony walked in about an hour later while she was sitting on her bed studying for the exam the next day. She had spaced out her night so that all her shorter assignments (like her math work and finishing her chemistry lab) were complete before cleaning and dedicating the rest of her time to the American Literature exam. She jumped a bit when he knocked and entered the room, and sat at the end of her bed with his hands crossed in his lap.