TROUBLE, peter parker

xv. the lizard in the room

"So how did this all start?"

Maya looked over at Gwen. "The lizard or the vigilantism?"

"Vigilantism."

They were riding the subway on the way to Oscorp and they were quite a sight to behold.

Maya sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "I guess it started with me. Summer going into sophomore year—for some reason, I survived the freak accident at the plant and it gave me the ability to manipulate metals."

"Makes sense," Gwen murmured.

Gwen was put together in an outfit that could probably be worn in an office job, and only her hair was the slightest bit disheveled.

"Peter, I'm not so sure about, but I assume it happened recently because he wasn't active before."

Maya, on the other hand, was not put together at all. Half of her hair had fallen out of her ponytail, with stray hairs sticking down to the drying sweat on her neck and face as well as some sticking to the dried blood on the side of her face. Random smears of blood decorated her clothes and skin, her jeans had become very ripped, and there was a suspicious claw mark going through her shirt.

"How long have you and Peter known about each other's ... other lives?"

"Maybe a few minutes before you found out," said Maya.

They had been a bit awkward boarding the subway at first in their condition, but after a few glances around, they realized no one in New York cared that much.

The subway jostled a bit as it came to a stop—one before Gwen and Maya needed to get off. People left and new people came, but the two girls stayed standing up, and they readjusted their grips on the shared metal pole.

"Does it scare you?" Gwen asked in a quiet voice to make sure no one overheard their conversation. "What you can do?"

"It did—a little at first," said Maya. "But I realized, you know, to what capacity I could use it for—that using them would help others, then it became an extension of myself."

Gwen nodded in understanding.

"You're just a kid, though," said Gwen. "It's not your job."

"It—I can't just let all of it get away from me," Maya said. "I mean, I know I have no great obligation to save everyone, but I have to do what I can. Like—why are you helping me right now?"

"Well, I—I have to," she answered as if it were obvious. "Circumstances made me the only one who can help you guys in this situation."

"Exactly."

They were frantically pacing as the cooking antidote timer was counting down at about eight minutes left. Maya had finally changed out of her ratty clothes into her vigilante clothing. She jumped a little when she felt her backpack vibrating at her ankles, and she reached down to pull out her phone, accepting the call from Peter.

"Hey, we're at Oscorp," she said. "The antidote is cooking. What's going on with you?"

"You have to get out of there," said Peter, in a frantic tone and ignoring her question. "Connors is on his way to you right now, and he wants the dispersion device to infect the entire city."

She looked around frantically, trying to calm her mind and come up with what to do. She made eye contact with Gwen, who was now looking at her curiously and trying to ask what was going on.

"The antidote has eight minutes—"

"Eight minutes?" Peter repeated through her phone speaker.

"Yeah," she breathed, but Peter was still speaking.