Flowers in the Window || W2S

7

Standing underneath the shower head, the water cascading down your body, fingers massaging your scalp as you gently worked the conditioner through your hair, you began to think.

Spider-Man knew where you lived. You did not tell him, you did not give him any direction whatsoever. He had already known.

So, going off of this fact, there were only two boys you were friends with who knew where you lived. And not only was Wes currently in the Bahamas, but he had also been stood right next to you at the same time Spider-Man was on that night you first saw the fairytale villain.

That, of course, only left Harry.

You tried to think of every quality that one needed in order to successfully be Spider-Man. The hero was known for a good sense of humour. Harry was one of the funniest people you'd ever met. He also was very kind-a trait that you had to embody if you wanted to be everyone's friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. And his love for pizza..Harry liked pizza..

Oh, lovely, now you were hungry.

Sighing so loudly you half expected a noise complaint, the shower was turned off, and as you put the toilet lid down and sat on it to dry your legs, you tried to think harder. Think of more obvious reasons.

Intelligence. Someone who dealt with spiders and science had to be intelligent. And you had established very quickly that Harry wasn't failing his classes because he was stupid. It was more due to a lack of time-he always seemed to be late or busy. Fell asleep in class a lot as well. You remembered one particular day in maths, about a month before you'd started tutoring Harry and the whole world had aligned and realigned itself. He'd slept for a full twenty minutes of the lesson, with no interference, no distractions. Snored slightly, twitched occasionally, as though he was having some sort of nightmare. And then his friend Simon wandered into the room late, sat next to Harry, cleared his throat as if to bring all eyes in the class to himself, and whacked his sleeping friend right over the head. Harry woke up instantly and majorly panicked until he realised where he was, then calmed down and proceeded to barely pay attention for the rest of the lesson.

Pulling the towel around your body, you hunched forward on the latrine and thought some more. Strength. Spider-Man was strong-you'd felt it in the way he'd held you, carried you around like you were an empty cardboard box. And Harry had muscles. They poked through his shirts all the time, giving anyone who so much as glanced in his direction a good show. No wonder so many girls were-

Wait a minute.

Shirts.

You thought back to earlier in the day. When he'd come to the homeless shelter to see you-so curious after hearing endless weeks of you banging on about how much fun you had working there-going on and on about Marcus and Stella and the feeling of giving back to the community. After Marcus and Bryce had left you alone, you'd found yourself looking at Harry's shirt, underneath his jacket. And the second he caught you staring, he immediately zipped it up. It was a bright shirt, it stood out against his dark outfit. And the colours..the colours..the colours were..

Red and blue.

And just like that, everything fell into place.

Why he'd been so desperate to hide that shirt from you.

How he knew where you lived.

How he'd caught that water bottle on the day you'd knocked it off the desk, despite being so far away from it.

Why he was always so late to classes, or just didn't show up at all.

His strength. His intelligence. His reflexes.

The way he'd held you..held you like you were close to him..because you..you were..

And his desperate plea to you on the steps only hours before-why he'd made you promise to be safe for him. Because nobody knew the city crime rates better than he did.

The bathroom suddenly felt very crowded.

Gasping, you pulled yourself off the toilet and onto the floor, curling your towel-clad body against the wall. Air escaped you, refusing to enter your mouth. You clamped it shut, breathing through your nose-not the best way to deal with a sudden panic attack, but the only way you could see now.

Eventually, after what felt like centuries of having no oxygen, you began to breathe again. Shaky at first, then calmer as the time went on. Your entire body was trembling with a mixture of anxiety and excitement. Sweat grew across your chest, and you wiped it away to give your hands something to do. It was usually easy to calm yourself, to bring yourself back down to earth and take a moment to stabilise yourself. Maybe it wasn't a panic attack after all. Maybe you had just forgotten to breathe or something.

Still, just to be sure, you pushed yourself up and pressed your damp head against the cool porcelain of the sink. You tended to feel intensely warm during bouts of anxiety-the cold helped.

The information ran through your brain again. Strength, intelligence, reflexes, suit, kindness. It was a little lifeline in your current state. The repetition slowed your mind.

Leaning away from the sink, you sat back against the wall. You thought it all through one last time, just to be sure. And as you sat there, in nothing but a towel, hair still soaked and flat, the floor wet beneath your hands and feet, you looked towards the window, out at the reflection of the moon, and you figured out that Harry was Spider-Man in the exact same way you fell in love with him-very, very slowly, and then suddenly all at once.