The Bite of the Spider: Spider-Man

Chapter 10

Waking up on the morning of the presentation made (Y/n)'s nerves begin to fire like crazy as she reached for her alarm clock to turn it off. Now she was wide awake, thinking about what exactly would happen after today between her and Peter. She still didn't like him, but it had lessened from before. Times before the project left her flustered with anger as she strode away from him to her next class, but during this project, she saw a side of Peter Parker that he had never shown to her before. It was all she could think about as she prepared for the day at school, both physically and mentally. She didn't know how she was going to handle this.

When she got there, she saw Gwen by her locker, and sighed, shaking her head at her best friend. Gwen's nose was still red from her sickness, and she was coughing up a storm. It had only been two days since she was hit with her illness, but now she was up and back in school like nothing had ever happened.

When (Y/n) walked up to her, Gwen turned and coughed into her elbow, making (Y/n) reel back a little bit. Gwen sniffed and groaned, turning to see her friend standing there with a raised eyebrow. "What?" she questioned, her voice nasally from the congestion. When (Y/n) did not talk and only continued to look at her judgmentally, Gwen rolled her eyes and said, "I'b alreby missed too much schoo'. I can't miss any more." Her voice ended some words with b's from her nasally nose.

"My, God, Gwen. You really are insane." (Y/n) said with a shake of her head.

"I'll get bebber as the day goes on!" Gwen tried, but (Y/n) only laughed at her pronunciation of 'better'. "Oh, shu'd up."

(Y/n) glanced from Gwen over to Peter, who hadn't looked at her yet. He was busy putting his stuff in his locker, and (Y/n) felt a rush of butterflies start to flutter in her stomach. She cursed herself for getting so nervous, but turned to Gwen and said, "Hey, uh... about what you said a few days ago," Gwen picked up her head quickly at the mention, "I still don't know if we can keep things the way they are right now. Things have to go back to normal because I might explode, this is such foreign ground. The project is due today and we are up to present first thing when class starts, so... after that, it's back to the opposite ends of the field."

Gwen shook her head lightly and closed her locker, turning to face (Y/n). "I remember wha'd you said. I just 'oped that, maybe, you could learn to be comfor'bable in this... foreign ground, as you call it." Gwen knew better than to put a hand on her shoulder, given she was still sick, so she resorted for a meaningful look her way. "I'm not gonna try any more if you don't wan'd me to."

(Y/n) looked at her for a moment, and gave a slight nod of the head before walking across the hallway to her own locker, passing Peter as she did. Peter felt the breeze of her pass, and glanced beside him to look at her. His brown eyes raked over her figure for a moment before he once again buried his head in his locker, remembering the day. He didn't want things to go back to how they were before. He knew he had to talk to her, but how could he get her to listen to him without forcing her to? She was so difficult sometimes. Maybe, he could talk to her as Spider-Man? No, it has to be Peter he scolded himself. He couldn't turn to his alter ego every time he had an issue with (Y/n). He knew that was no way to solve it.

Peter knew he had to be delicate, considering how his last attempt to get to know her better went a few days ago. He was too forward, too pushy. He had seen in her eyes that she was scared of what he was doing. A sudden thought occurred to him, and he glanced over at her once more as he thought. Was (Y/n) scared of a relationship with him where they weren't fighting? Was she too used to this way of going around him that the thought of anything else was too hard to think about for her? The notion of such emotions coming from her, made him feel almost the same way, a glimmer of fear growing in his heart as he took his math book from his locker. Turning her way, he cleared his throat lightly to get her attention.