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CHAPTER FOURTEEN Sorry For Me
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ON THE SUBWAY RIDE HOME, Uncle called Cecelia a total of six times. She declined each one, satisfied at the act of x-ing out his face, but he was persistent. In fact, the constant trill of Nocturnal Me by Echo & The Bunnymen coming from her pocket began to annoy the other passengers, who glared at her as if she'd just kicked a puppy. Given the strangeness of the NYC Public Transportation system, Cecelia thought this was a little unfair, but she turned off her ringtone, regardless. Then she sat there, headphones over her ears, trying to let her favourites playlist drown out the roar of her thoughts.
Toomes and Schultz had left her. They'd seen what was happening, seen the ferry split into two, and they'd flown off anyway, knowing her boots were jammed. Even if they hadn't picked her up and carried her along for the ride, there were still multiple things they could have done, and they hadn't. It had only been because of Peter that she hadn't drowned.
And Peter... that was another can of worms. Everything was slowly sinking in, now, and yet, Cecelia's mind was still supremely boggled. The vigilante she'd spent the past few weeks fighting was the same dorky boy who stuttered his way through every sentence and wore punny science T-shirts. And now... now, he'd figure out that she was Phantom. She'd practically given it away to him.
Fortunately, as long as she knew who he was, he couldn't do anything. Cecelia wasn't above leaking his identity to the public if he turned her in. Spider-Man's identity was a gold nugget of information; ever since he'd come swinging into Queens, people had wanted to know who the man behind the mask was. A blog Cecelia followed called Are you Spider-Man? compared random pedestrians to the vigilante, comments on Instagram and Twitter often cried for a reveal, and even the news outlets had touched on it a few times. All of them—plus the several criminals Peter had locked behind bars—would have a field day with Cecelia's information.
Nothing like that would happen with Cecelia's identity. Solely because she'd been out of the public eye for the five years she'd been active.
Still, even if she didn't tell everyone, she should probably at least tell Uncle and Toomes. Peter had been screwing with them for a while now, knocking nearly every deal they did into the dust. If the company knew who he was, then they could take care of him. He wouldn't be a problem for them anymore.
Yet, the thought of selling Peter out like that made Cecelia squirm. She didn't owehim anything—even though he had saved her life—and, besides, he'd been a big pain in the ass to her, too. But... Peter was just a kid. He was the same age as Cecelia. And he was still fairly new to the whole crime-fighting business, too. The idea of him going against Toomes—really going against him—and his weapons... well, all Cecelia could see was Brice, dissolving into ash. What if that happened to Peter?
