TASM Peter Parker Imagines

Like a Daydream (Part Two)

You swore to yourself that you wouldn't let your dual identities be a problem. It wouldn't come in between you and your regular life, not when you first started, and certainly not now. The fact that you just found out that Spider-Man is your best friend Peter Parker doesn't have to change anything.

It's a foolish hope, and you know it. For one thing, Peter's getting closer to figuring out your own secret identity by the day. You thought you'd been able to convince him you were just a normal teenager that night you'd come home late from a run-in with the Avengers and his own superhero persona, but it looks like your luck won't last forever.

In truth, you'd always assumed that something like this was bound to happen. There's no way that you'd be able to keep your identity as Nightmare a secret forever, even though you'd like nothing more than for that to happen. There are simply too many eyes in S.H.I.E.L.D. bent on tracking you down.

After all, who are you to stop them? You're just some kid trying to find her friend. You don't know what you thought you were getting yourself into when you first tried to track down your missing inhuman friend, Alyna, but it has quickly spiraled out of control.

The only hope you now have of actually tracking her down lies in the information you were able to recover on the day of your break-in. You haven't gotten a chance to look at it yet, but you intend to do so today. It could all be totally useless, but at least it's something you didn't have before.

You're feeling quite paranoid about the whole thing, so you decide to open the files at school. If S.H.I.E.L.D. is somehow able to trace the signal when you open the files, they'll only track you here, and they might assume that they're finding Peter and not you. It's the best you can do for a cover.

You wait until school is out, then pull out your laptop and find a corner of the building with no security cameras overseeing your every movement. You plug the flash drive into your computer with trembling hands. What are you going to find on this thing?

As it turns out, you find a whole lot of nothing. The files you were able to access are just entry level nonsense, stuff they probably allocate to interns who need to feel important but don't have the clearance for anything else. You can guess at a few locations that might prove useful in the future, but other than that, you've hit yet another dead end.

You sigh, frustrated, and slam the lid of your laptop closed, revealing a figure standing right in front of you, their arms crossed in disapproval. You freeze— you hadn't heard Peter come in, but it's too late to try and hide.

By the looks of his expression, he knows exactly what you've been doing. You still try to weasel your way out of it, though.

"Say, Peter, I didn't realize you were still here. Were you studying for the chem quiz? Believe me, I couldn't be more stressed about—"

Peter cuts you off coolly. "Why are you looking at S.H.I.E.L.D. files? Don't try to deny it, I saw the logo on your screen."

Your wary smile drops like a stone. "I was just, uh, googling the logo. Art reference image, you know?"

Peter scoffs. "You know I can tell when you're lying, right? Why do you have those files?"

You can see Peter straining to say something. He knows that Nightmare was in the Avengers facility and that she managed to steal some S.H.I.E.L.D. files. He can't reveal that he knows this, however, because only Spider-Man would have heard about that, and Peter doesn't think that anyone who isn't an Avengers affiliate is aware of his secret identity.

You've been afraid of this reveal ever since you found out that Peter is Spider-Man. It was inevitably going to happen some point, although you'd hoped to have at least a little more time with your best friend before he started to hate you. It's a shame that everything you've ever built with him, every inside joke and long lasting memory, is about to be torn down to mere shreds of a once perfect life.