Ava's POV
The thing about being the middle of the fucking mountains snowboarding for a week is that life around you doesn't stop. Trains keep moving, people keep going to work, life keeps going despite it all. As much as I loved being in the mountain with Louis and Stella and Peter and Oli and Flash and Harry and Justin, my new family, eventually we had to come down from our retreat. By the end of the week, everyone was kind of sick of each other. Louis was driving the car, and Stella was being kind of a bitch about it because she said she didn't like the way Louis drives, but Louis wasn't budging, saying Stella didn't know how to drive if the roads were icy. Then Stella started whining she was car sick and eventually when we stopped for gas station snacks she snatched Peter from Flash's truck and made him become her human pillow in the backseat the rest of the way home.
"Have they always been like that?" Louis whispered, once it had become clear Peter and Stella were asleep in the backseat.
"Pretty much. Peter is the sweetest boy I've ever met in my entire life." I explained.
"Sweeter than me?" He pouted.
"My sweet love. Earlier this week you threw Stella into a snow bank. Last night you beat the shit out of Oli with my left Croc. This morning you told me I look like an egg."
"A cute egg." He pouted.
"Sunny side up?" I asked, trying to imagine a sunny side up egg with a little smiley face in the yolk, because maybe just maybe that would be considered a cute egg.
"See I was thinking like... hard boiled..."
"And dyed pretty colors for Easter?" I hoped.
"Ava!" He gasped. "We forgot about Easter!"
"No way, Stella wouldn't have let us forget about Easter. Girly loves to make Easter baskets."
"1. That's precious and 2. I think girly has had a little bit more on her mind that making us Easter baskets." He reminded me.
"Please don't ever say 'girly' again." I teased. "There's no way Easter passed because Stella would've told us." I decided.
"Look it up." Louis prompted.
"No service in the mountains, dummy." I commented, holding up my phone that had been useless all fucking week. There wasn't even wifi at Louis' mountain house. He said he wanted it to be a place no one could reach. We drove quietly for a while, talking a little bit about nothing until Louis started getting in his head again.
"He's still Spider-Man." Louis said.
"Yeah, isn't it cool?" I asked, knowing based on his tone he probably didn't think it was cool.
"I just... when you surround yourself with superheroes, the bad guys always find you. Stella got locked in a bathroom for three weeks and she got a gun held to her in a different dimension and I... I know she's fine, but these things shouldn't keep happening to her." I didn't say anything.
"Stella is so sweet and innocent and... I mean, she makes Easter baskets, and crawls into bed with me when she has nightmares and she's still afraid to go upstairs in my house because she thinks it's my space. Stella doesn't deserve to be a target."
"And she's been a target her whole life. Even before Peter was Spider-Man." I offered, not sure how that was supposed to help the situation at all.
"It's not fair." Louis sighed.
"But if you think about it, Stella has me and you and Harry and Justin and fucking Flash Thompson to protect her. Even Oli would protect her if he had to." I pointed out. Louis chuckled a little.
