venus ⋮ peter parker

3.

T h r e e

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The first thing Calliope managed to comprehend as a fast blur of red and blue. However, from there, she didn't think about much else in the heat of the moment. Instead, out of pure survivor instinct, Calliope screamed and threw her Physics textbook. It wasn't until she heard the blur let out a loud cry of pain that she realized it was in fact a person who had crashed through her window.

"What the fuck!" She screamed as the textbook hit whoever had crashed through her window. In her panic, she heard a masculine cry of pain, making Calliope realize it was likely a guy under the mask. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" He yelled, standing up and waving his hands in front of him as he did. "I didn't mean to do that! I'm sure you have a lot of questions right now and–"

"Yeah – why the fuck are you in my bedroom?"

"I– I was trying to swing away from a bunch of bad guys and I got super panicked and I thought I was landing on a building wall and..." He gestured wildly around the room. "Clearly that didn't work out for me!"

Calliope finally noticed the bright red and blue suit with a spider in the center of the chest and suddenly realized that the famous neighborhood superhero Spider-Man was the one who crashed into her room. She suddenly felt grateful she was still somehow sitting on her bed because she suddenly felt a little weak in the knees that a guy who fought with the Avengers was standing in the middle of her bedroom.

Peter, on the other hand, nearly peed his suit when he realized that he hadn't just crashed into any random New York City apartment, but the apartment of Calliope Liu – the really pretty girl in his chemistry class who had always been kind to him and simultaneously didn't take shit from almost anyone.

He finally managed to get over his shock enough to process his surroundings. Calliope's bedroom was small, but cozy. What caught Peter's attention was a desk in the opposite corner of her room with a large computer set-up and detailed drawings lining the wall behind it that seemed to form some sort of story-board, and Peter was grateful that had been left untouched. As furious as Calliope seemed now, he had a gut feeling her anger would've been multiplied by a million if Peter had even touched that area of her bedroom.

"Oh God," Calliope said suddenly, getting Peter out of his own thoughts and back into the situation. "That's a huge cut on your side. Are you alright?"

Peter looked down and noticed for the first time that there was a huge cut on his side that, while bloody, was thankfully not bleeding onto the carpet."No, no it's fine–"

"It's clearly not fine," She cut in, gesturing for Peter to sit down in her desk chair. "Wait there and I'll help you out, alright?"

Peter was almost in awe on how quickly Calliope's mood had shifted from fury to caring for him like this. She disappeared from the room for moment only to come back a few seconds later with an old, paint-covered t-shirt in her hands. Calliope offered it to Peter, and he gratefully took it and placed it against the wound.

As Calliope pulled out a large plastic container from under her bed containing a wide variety of bottles and bandages and even more, Peter couldn't help but ask, "Why do you have a whole hospital set-up in your bedroom?"

"Cheerleading can be dangerous, and the school nurse sometimes isn't the best at treating the injuries long-term. I kind of learnt how to take care of my own injuries so I wouldn't have to risk something going wrong. Granted, I can't fix a broken bone or anything like that, but I can take care of a lot of other stuff."

Peter was quiet as she disinfected the wound to the best of her ability and bandaged it up. He wasn't entirely sure what to talk to her about in that sort of situation, except how grateful he was that she would do this for him.

Once it was safe for Peter to stand, he immediately stepped over to the broken window and offered, "Here, let me get all this glass out of your carpet."

"I can do that on my own–"

"It's the least I can do," Peter insisted. "After I smashed your window, I can't let you cut your hands trying to pick up the pieces."

He held up his gloved hands and eventually Calliope shrugged, allowing Spider-Man to pick up the glass and carefully put it in a paper bag Calliope had gotten earlier that day when she had stopped by a local deli to pick up some snacks.

As he cleaned up the glass, Calliope glanced over at her broken window and asked, "You're paying for my window, right?"

"I'm broke."

"Don't you work for Tony Stark?"

"It's an unpaid position."

"Of course Tony Stark doesn't pay his interns," she grumbled, rolling her eyes. This earned a small laugh out of Peter. "It isn't like he's one of the richest men on the planet."

Peter finished cleaning up the glass and carefully securing the paper bag. As he did, Calliope eyed an old bed sheet and muttered something that sounded like "This'll do" as she picked it up, along with a jar of large thumbtacks. She began pinning up the sheet against her window, hoping that it would be somewhat affecting in blocking out the outside environment.

"I'm so sorry for destroying it," He said awkwardly. "I swear, if I had to money to replace it, I would. I didn't know I was landing on a window, honest. I thought it was a brick wall. I can try and find some money, though."

"You're lucky it's not a freezing cold New York City winter yet," She joked. "Otherwise I might not be so forgiving."

"I better hope it doesn't rain either," He joked before saying, "Thanks so much again for patching me up. Normally I don't even deal with injuries like this, so this is actually really nice."

"Jeez, Spider-Boy, you don't take care of this stuff? That's gonna cause an infection someday."

Peter shrugged. "It hasn't caused one yet–"

"But it probably will, no matter what weird superhuman abilities you have. If you ever have something like this happen again, you can stop by here. Although...I get the whole super-secret identity thing if you don't want to trust me and think I'm some sort of super villain in disguise."

He shook his head. "I don't think you're a super villain. And...I might actually take you up on that in the future, thanks."

Peter glanced at the clock on Calliope's bedside and winced when saw how late it had gotten. "I should probably head out of here. Gotta save the city and somehow make my curfew."

Calliope raised an eyebrow. "Spider-Boy has a curfew?" She teased.

"Spider-Man, not Spider-Boy," He groaned, but didn't deny the fact that he had some sort of a curfew.

"You sound like you're my age. I'm calling you Spider-Boy."

He thought it was best he didn't fight her on it, especially considering she had almost let go the fact he had shattered her window and she had helped fixed up the nasty cut on his side.

Peter Parker then stepped onto the terrace, gave Calliope a "Thank you so much again" and a small wave, and leapt out of the hole that was once her window and into the New York City night.

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a/n:

hi guys !!

calliope and spider-man have officially met !! and it was complete and utter chaos (but would we expect any less from these two).

i originally said i was going to publish this chapter tomorrow, but i got completely distracted because i was flying across the country to visit my family. my plan was going to be posting in the early morning before my flight, but it completely slipped my mind and i didn't remember that i was going to publish a chapter until this morning HAHA

i hope you all enjoyed the chapter and have a lovely day !! i'll see you at the next update !!

- g ♡