Spider-Man | Doesn't Need Help

CHAPTER 18

  "No…"

  "How come you don't!? After all..." He stopped abruptly when I quickly showed him the square root, which he had missed and therefore not written down, and all of this led to him having the equation solved incorrectly.

  Ned looked at me with a dejected look, and I deliberately chipped my teeth so hard that I felt pain in my cheekbones.

  "Ow…" I groaned, returning to my natural expression, massaging the sore spot on my cheek.

  The dark-haired man laughed, shaking his head slightly.

  "It's a sign you don't smile enough."

  "It’s not a sign that I don’t smile enough, it’s a reason why," I corrected him, to which my friend rolled his eyes.

  "You've become more outspoken." I snorted on purpose, knowing he was most likely just joking. I think. "And you're actually better that way." Ha!

  "Okay, okay, do it again," I ordered, looking at his flawed equation.

  Leeds reluctantly got back to work and this time wrote everything down correctly.

  We practiced for less than half an hour before we both started packing up and eventually went our separate ways.

  I thought that the slightly over an hour I had spent explaining chemistry to my friend would be wasted and I would be bored and perhaps unnecessarily nervous. And from the beginning it was not like that at all.

  My relationship with Ned was really good, I guess.

  I quickly crossed the street, heading to a place I already knew very well.

  This was starting to become a routine for me. And honestly, I really enjoyed it.

  I put the phone in my backpack, which I hid behind a container. I recently managed to fix the device, it was a bit difficult, but at least it worked. And not wanting to risk it breaking again, I left it with all the things in the bag.

  After a few minutes, I was glued to the windows of a skyscraper, watching New York from there. The sun beautifully illuminated the bustling city.

  You could say I've become a bit popular lately. Okay, maybe not a bit, but a lot.

  I began to swing above the streets, occasionally shooting the net upwards only when I was almost at the ground.

  Lately I've been trying really hard to find that creature, but I haven't been very successful. Either I've been looking in the wrong place, or it's just disappeared as soon as it sees me looking. Because even though I've managed to spot it somewhere, it's just run away, which is incredibly frustrating.

  I crouched on the roof of a building in one of the not-so-friendly neighborhoods in Queens, watching the people passing by.

  There was a bank near me, so I decided to fly by it. As it turned out, the people who were robbing it were out of luck today.

  Four men, dressed very similarly, mostly black, were briskly stuffing something into bags, and that something was most likely money.

  I was surprised that no alarm went off or anything.

  I landed near the entrance and then started running quickly but completely silently to the entrance, having previously called the police.

  I stood in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe, and just looked at them for a moment.

  Ever since I started being Spider-Man, I noticed that as him, I was… Different. And I really liked that differentness. Sometimes, too much.

  "Hey, guys," I began, getting their attention.