Peter Parker- I'm with you, no matter what

Chapter 18

The competition was almost over and there was only our team and the academic decathlon teams from two other schools left. The final round was on. Liz briefly gave one of her usual "motivational speeches".

"So guys, come on. Give it your all again. We'll win this and we'll take this trophy home with us!”

She took this competition far too seriously. That was probably because the audience was there too.
The lap went really well for us. MJ, Ned and Flash each answered two questions, Liz and I each answered three and a few other people questions in between. Peter even answered four and as far as I could tell he answered them correctly.
After the last question, the jury members disappeared into an adjoining room to evaluate the points. They came back and the other two teams and we stood in the middle of this big hall. We all took hands and waited anxiously for the announcement. When Peter grabbed my hand, I was shocked and withdrew my hand out of reflex, but then I quickly grabbed his hand.

"The winners are ... The team won ... the New York Midtown Highschool !!!"

Ned immediately freaked out: "Oh my God! Guys! This is us! We won!”

The audience clapped and the team embraced. Back at the motel it had to be celebrated first. We celebrated a long time and it was already dark when everyone went to their rooms. I walked into my room and saw my suit lying on the bed. How did it get there? I hadn't even taken it with me. Next to it was a note: “Get dressed and go out!”

I didn't know why, but I just pulled the suit over my clothes, luckily it was very elastic. I listened briefly at my door to make sure no one was in the hallway. Since I couldn't hear anyone, I stepped outside the door and saw Peter standing in front of me in his Spider-Man outfit.

"Peter! Everyone could see you here!”

“But nobody has and now unfortunately you have to accompany me!”

Before I could say anything, he pulled out a black cloth and blindfolded my eyes. I laughed for some reason as he brushed my hair to one side to tie the ends of the cloth at the back of my head.

"Can I find out what this supposed to be?"

"No, you can't.", he replied, putting his hands on my shoulders and pushing me in front of him. We went up a flight of stairs and I felt the wind on my face, we were probably on the roof. Peter took my arms and put them around his torso. "Hold on!" I felt how we fell into the depths and then were suddenly pulled up again. The same thing happened three more times, and I just hoped my hands wouldn't slip. But then I felt solid ground under my feet. Peter stood so close in front of me, I could feel his warm breath. A tingling sensation ran through my body. He reached around my head and took the cloth from me. We were standing on the roof of a rather tall skyscraper. There were fairy lights hanging everywhere, giving off a warm light, and a few blankets and pillows lay in the middle of the roof. It all looked so wonderful, the stars in the sky, the view over the city lights, just everything.

“It- it's beautiful! Thanks! But you really didnt have to bother so much.”

“ Yes, I had to.”

Suddenly soft music started and Peter gave me his hand.

"May I ask?"

I just smiled and put my hand in his. It was a strange, but still very nice feeling to dance with him like that and I wouldn't have minded doing it more often. After a while we laughed and collapsed on the pillows and Peter looked deep into my eyes.

"I'm really glad that everything is ok between us and that we are still ... friends."

In his eyes I could see that he meant everything he said seriously. I took off the gloves that came with my suit, put them next to me, and rolled over on my back. We lay side by side and looked up at the stars. My hands were next to my body and Peter's hand slowly approached mine. Timidly his hand slipped under mine and our fingers interlocked. I was afraid he would pull his hand away if I did anything now, so I just lay there quietly. But then ... a deafening loud bang. I was frightened.

“What was that?”

“It must have something to do with Vulture. After all, he's here in Washington too. We have to see what happened!”

“But we weren't strong enough last time. They could kill us.”

“Yes, but we have to risk that. You don't have to come with me if you don't want to.”

“If you go there, me too! I won't let you do this alone!”

Peter put his mask back on and I slipped my gloves over my hands, we ran off. We ran over the rooftops and jumped from building to building. Finally we reached our destination, the buildings around us were on fire, everything was full of smoke and a shape could be made out in all this smoke.

A figure with wings. Vulture! But there was already someone fighting him, Iron-Man!

"Mr. Stark?!“, Peter said softly.

At that moment, Iron-Man was thrown against a house wall and Peter continued to fight in his place. It looked terrible how they were fighting. Iron-Man had picked himself up again and was ready to continue with Peter's support.
Vulture seemed pretty strong though, I couldn't just stand there. I did what I could, it took a lot of strength but then I broke all the window panes around us and hurled all the splinters at our enemy. I could damage his suit that way. He staggered, but recovered. At least now he had me in his sights too. Iron-Man tried to get his attention again, but Vulture came running straight towards me.

I gathered all my strength and began to float again, like in this warehouse. My hands glowed, the purple fireballs growing bigger and bigger. Vulture pulled out some very dangerous-looking weapons from his suit and immediately fired at me. I shot the fireballs at him and blocked his attack. But before I could gather new strength, a shot hit me. I was thrown back hard, crashed into a wall, and sank to the floor. My back and head throbbed and hurt. Peter held Vulture back with his webs and Mr. Stark flew at him at full speed and knocked him to the ground. Vulture managed to break free and flew onto the roof of a tall house, Peter and Iron-Man followed him.

And even when I was in terrible pain, I would run into the house and inside up on the roof. Vulture had badly damaged Iron-Man's suit with his unearthly weapons and was now fully focused on Peter. He pointed his gun at him and was about to shoot, but I couldn't let that happen. I was able to move things with my strength, so certainly people too. So I threw Vulture as far away from Peter as I could, but at the same time he shot and hit. Peter's suit protected him, but not enough.