1 | ISSUES ( Peter Parker )

08

           

CHAPTER EIGHT | GIFTBAGS AND MISTLETOE

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you and atlas are the same—
cursed to hold a weight you can't bear
and still standing.
not because you can,
but because you have to.

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Fighting alongside Spider-Man had been exhilarating. Bella wasn't sure how she had ever managed before he came along. Something about having someone there with you, someone to watch your back... it was good.

But maybe it was a little too good. Bella had the time of her life with Spider-Man and she had no idea who he really was or what he looked like. Yet, she found that she didn't care. She loved the mystery of it all, and regardless of who Spidey was or looked like he made her feel nice.

Which was a problem.

Because Spidey made Bella feel the exact same way Peter did, and she didn't want to have feelings for two kind of perfect guys at the same time. And choosing between the two boys would be hard considering Bella couldn't foresee herself making any romantic progress with either of them.

And it wasn't like she could kiss the both of them. That would seem a little unfair.

"Find any monsters?"

Spidey liked to sneak up on Bella, but she had long since grown used to it. It didn't faze her anymore. Wordlessly, he sat next to her on the ledge of the roof. Their legs were pressed against each other.

"None as of yet," Bella muttered a reply, glancing down at the scanner on her watch.

"Maybe we'll get the night off," Spidey said hopefully.

Bella wished. Her Christmas party had been last night and she was running on three hours of sleep. Peter hadn't shown, which had really bummed her out but she wasn't gonna hold it against him. He probably felt weird about going to a party where he wasn't friends with anyone besides the host.

"Maybe," Bella yawned, flopping backwards so that she was lying down.

"I have an idea."

Before she could respond, Spidey grabbed her and they were soon flying through the air. Bella let out a shriek of delight and threw her head back, letting the freezing, late December air roll over her body.

"That was fun," Bella told him as her feet slammed into the ground. "Way more fun than teleporting."

"Teleporting barely feels like you're moving," Spidey said shooting a web so that it was attached to the building next to them. He flipped upside down and shot another web at the next building so that he was suspended in the middle of the alley. "Whereas I can do this."

Spidey then did several acrobatic flips through the air, essentially scaling the building. Bella watched him in slight awe, giggling all the while. There was something familiar yet so utterly fascinating about Spidey. A few moments later, his head was directly in front of hers, just upside down.

"Doesn't that hurt your brain?" Bella asked, pushing his shoulder and causing him to swing back and forth.

"No."

"Maybe you don't have a brain then," Bella teased, grabbing his shoulders to steady him and stop the swinging.

"Maybe so."

Bella itched to curl her fingers around Spidey's mask and pull it off. She was slightly terrified. Her feelings for this masked boy in front of her had developed way too fast in the span of a week and a half – but she couldn't exactly help that; there was just something so familiar and so safe about him. But what if underneath that mask he was one of Flash Thompson's cronies?