𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 - 𝐏.𝐏

Prologue

The early morning sun shines down on the aged golden bricks of the subway station walls as bustling crowds full of perfectly ironed shirts and shiny briefcases all push to get to their destinations on time. In the midst of it all, dirty converse squeaks along the floors as the owner skips and dodges his way through the station, narrowly avoiding crashing into elderly ladies and businessmen too consumed into their fast-paced telephone conversations.

As the sight of his train's door closing enters his vision, he grips his backpack straps tightly and surges forward, legs moving quickly before leaping into the carriage just as the doors close shut behind him. He looks up to see several pairs of eyes on him from the commotion and flushes in embarrassment, muttering apologies as he moves to find a free spot.

He catches sight of two strap handles (strapped handles? handle straps? hanging grabby things? There really should be a better name for those) and quickly grabs hold of them before the next flush of people boarded.

While keeping a close watch on the one unoccupied handle, he reaches into his back pocket for his phone and searched for the contact labeled Happy Hogan before typing his daily morning message which, as usual, received no response. Scrolling back on the hundreds of one-sided text messages filled with his enthusiastic updates, questions, and excessive greetings, he felt the restless energy building up inside of him once again. Longing to be given a real mission again, where he could feel useful and important again. But as usual, his alter ego would have to wait until 2:45 pm this afternoon.

Consumed in his thoughts about his afterschool activities, he failed to notice the teenage girl who had just stepped through the doors, craning her neck and standing on her tiptoes to look over the crowd. As she finally spotted the familiar blue sweater and brown curls she easily slipped between through the flock of people and neared the boy who had his head hunched over and earphones plugged in. She grinned mischievously from behind him, securing her satchel over her right shoulder tightly. With one finger she tapped onto his shoulder from behind, quickly ducking the other way when his head turned curiously. She moved closer to his other shoulder as he still looked around at the crowd over his shoulder, smiling innocently as his head began to turn back towards her direction.

At the sight of the grinning girl's face mere inches from his own he jumped and fought to suppress a surprised yelp as he scrambled for his phone which slipped through his fingers in fright.

"Jesus Lyn. Stop doing that!", he whined quietly as she giggled behind her hand as she successfully scared him for the fourth time that week.

"Sorry Pete, you just make it too easy. I can't help it".

"Or you just like giving me heart attacks every day...".

Still, he couldn't help the easy grin that overtook his face, matching Lyn's perfectly. Shrugging wordlessly, she simply reached up and across his face as she tugged one earbud out of his ear and popped it into her own, smiling wider at the familiar tune.

Peter watched her with an amused expression on his face before turning his attention to the window, watching the familiar scenery fly past in a blur. He sighed, half content and half fatigued as his mundane everyday routine began once again. Longing for a more exciting and adventure-filled life as his body jostled against his best friend's as she softly hummed the same song faintly buzzing in his right ear.

Wishing for the action-packed life of a superhero like Tony Stark instead of being trapped in a prison cell full of hundreds of sweaty hormonal teenagers for six hours. He knew he was ready for greater things, he just had to prove it to the right people.