𝐝𝐞𝐣𝐚 𝐯𝐮, peter parker

x. disaster plans

chapter ten!
disaster plans

     THE WORLD seemed to be against Peter Parker. A boy who lost his parents, and now, lost his uncle in just as tragic means. The day Nina found out, she had been breathless. Ben Parker had done nothing. He had been a good man; all he had done was try to be good, try to save a life, and he got a bullet wound to the stomach for his bravery. Nina had only met him once. She had seen him pick Peter up from school after he shattered the basketball hoop. "He's got you on his computer," Ben Parker had told her, and Peter had been a flustered mess. Just from that one interaction, Nina knew he had been a good man. He had raised Peter Parker as well as any father could, and now he was gone.

For a month, no one knew what to say to him. He had returned to school, broken and angry, with bruises under his eyes, cuts to his cheeks and looking worse than hell. Nina hugged him the first day he got back, but he hadn't said a word. He accepted it, and then slipped away, not even looking at her as he pushed onwards through the hallway with his skateboard in his school bag.

Nina didn't know much of what to do, either. She said hello to him every day, gave him the same smiles and tried to start a conversation, just to get his mind off things. Day by day, he might say hello back, give her a strained smile through the bruises on his jaw, or talk to her. They had a soft conversation the other day, and Nina thought for a moment he had tried to joke to her, but it came out dry. She held hope from it; hope that he'll make it out on the other side.

This month was the month of many things happening. Nina attended her new internship, studied and chatted with Gwen in school and on the weekends. But in the streets, a strange vigilante had emerged. Someone who went through many red masks, swinging from the buildings with real webs like a spider. Gwen told her that her father wasn't fond of him, at all, going after criminals with his own personal agenda. Nina didn't know what to think, seeing this stranger pop up on YouTube and Instagram, webbing criminals in front of the police station and disappearing off before anyone could ask who he was.

He became a common conversation at school. People debated the physics of his webs, who he might be, how he had become a living Spider-Man. Or how he managed to get out in that skin-tight red and blue suit.

    Nina pulled her feet up onto Gwen's bed, crossing her legs and watching her check her notes to see which ones Nina could have for a last minute catch up. The room was silent, mainly because Nina knew what she wanted to talk about, but Gwen had been avoiding it to make sure her father didn't go off in a huge rant about how Spider-Man was only creating dangerous disruptions. Nina's father would agree with him.

But she couldn't help but blurt out a quick, "What if the webs come out of him? Like━like web-blood?"

Gwen looked up, her amusement coming past the annoyance to scoff at Nina's choice of words. Her heavy bangs were pulled off her face slightly into her ponytail by a bright-pink clip. "Web-blood?" she repeated, snorting. "For someone so smart, Nin, you really don't always think your words through."

Nina grabbed a post-it note, scrunched it up and threw it at her friend who let out a laugh━but it sounded more like a squeal of delight, smacking it away with a dramatic gasp. Gwen quickly took the scrunched up post-it note back and chucked it in response. Nina cackled, ducking. It hit the wall and miraculously fell into Gwen's paper waste basket. The blonde threw her hands up, startled but triumphant over her small achievement. Nina gave her a clap and Gwen bowed, still laughing.