Spiderman's Sister

What are you doing here?

After Peter left I took a shower and made myself comfortable on the sofa with a few snacks. Bored, I search the Internet for orders for newspaper articles, but only find underpaid and uninteresting nonsense. I hate having to look for jobs myself. When the doorbell suddenly rings, I am confused at first. I'm not expecting anyone. Nevertheless, I'm curious who that could be and decide to open it. When I see who is standing in front of me, I am delighted and at the same time even more confused.

Victoria: Hey........ what...... what are you doing here?

James stands in front of me. He looks sad and upset.

Bucky: Why did you do that?

Victoria: Why did I do what?

Bucky: Your job? The newspaper article?

I should have known Peter wouldn't be able to keep this to himself. I guess I should explain to James why I allowed myself to be fired. But not here at the door, where all the neighbors can overhear what happened.

Victoria: Can we talk about this inside? I don't want my neighbors to hear all of this.

Without waiting for his answer, I go back into the living room. James follows me and closes the front door behind him. We sit across from each other in the living room and suddenly I don't really know what to say anymore. I don't even know what exactly Peter told him. Peter assumes that the only reason I didn't write the article was because I wanted to protect James, which is kind of true. But do I want James to know? Am I willing to let him see that I like him very much and would never let the press tear him up because of me? Damn Peter! That you can't keep anything to yourself for once.

Victoria: Peter shouldn't have told you about it.

Bucky: He didn't. I overheard him talking to Tony about it.

That actually surprises me. I thought Peter ran straight to James, assuming he would help me.

Bucky: I don't get it. Why would you do this? Why are you risking your job for me?

Victoria: I just didn't want to do what my boss wanted me to do.

Bucky: And what was that?

Victoria: He wanted me to write an intimate and detailed article about the former Winter Soldier. An article that would have exposed your entire private life in the press. All good and especially all bad.

Bucky: But why? Why does he think you could get this information?

Victoria: He... he saw us together at the bar last week.

There it is again, that broken look in James' eyes. I know the situation is far from perfect, but James looks devastated. He's not at all to blame for my situation. It was solely my decision not to write the article. I was aware of the consequences and was more than willing to accept them. I have to somehow get James to understand that Colin is just such a bad loser and can't deal with the fact that I'm not interested in him.

Victoria: Also, he's mad at me because I just dumped him at dinner last week. He knows I don't like writing about the Avengers. This is the tit for tat now.

Even now, James doesn't look any less devastated. On the contrary, somehow he looks even sadder. Silence spreads between us as I feverishly try to find the right words to cheer him up. This isn't his fault!

Bucky: Ask me what you need to know. I'll give you all the answers so you can write the article.

Victoria: What? No! You won't do that, James.