Into the Wind // Peter Parker

Two

The day went relatively quick for Maria. Her thoughts, while otherwise occupied by schoolwork, couldn't seem to stop drifting to Peter every so often. How could he have such patience with Flash? Even the thought of the bully caused an anger to rise within her, but Peter was always calm.

Maria walked into the auditorium after class, greeting her decathlon teammates on arrival. Her eyes met Peter's as she walked in and she offered a slight smile as she began walking over to the empty chair beside him.

"Can I sit here?" She asked, placing her bag on the ground.

"Sure!" Ned answered for him. Peter was staring at the clock and tapping his foot, totally ignoring her as she sat down. Ned nudged him with his elbow, breaking him from his trance.

"Ow! Oh! Hey," Peter's focus shifted away from the clock.

"What? Got someplace better to be?" Maria joked.

"Kind of." Maria's eyebrows furrowed at the vague answer, but decided not to push it. She watched Peter's gaze move to the front of the room and followed it. Unsurprisingly, it landed on Liz.

"Okay guys!" She shouted to get the attention of the room. "Today's practice is gonna have to run a bit short. Mr. Harrington is at a faculty meeting and I have to be somewhere, so we're gonna do some one-on-one competitions. Get into groups of three and have one person quiz the other two." Liz grabbed a book off the table before adding, "and don't forget to keep track of the points!"

Ned shuffled the quiz cards and began asking the questions to Maria and Peter. The competition began close, Peter answering just about every math and science question and Maria getting the english and history ones. She would've beat him if not for the five chemistry questions in a row toward the end.

"Ned, did you purposely stack the deck for Peter?!" Maria asked, frustrated after the third question came up. Peter was dying of laughter next to her.

"No! I shuffled them! You watched me!" Ned defended himself, holding in a laugh as well.

"Unbelievable..." Maria shook her head.

"You know," Peter chimed in from beside her, catching his breath, "this could have been avoided if you were just better at science." He was obviously kidding around, but Maria suddenly came up with an idea.

"You're right," she smirked. "Teach me."

"Oh yeah, sure."

"I'm serious! I suck at science. And besides, you owe me."

"For what?"

"I saved your ass this morning."

Ned suddenly looked intrigued. "Wait, what happened this morning?"

"I called Flash a dick after he threw Peter's homework across the room," Maria replied proudly. Ned nodded his head in approval, obviously enjoying the thought of Flash's reaction.

"Fine," Peter said. "It can't interfere with the Stark internship, though. So I could only help you, like, maybe once a week."

"Oh, wow, I didn't think you'd actually say yes." Maria pulled out her phone, creating a new contact for Peter. "I'll try not to mess with your internship." Peter took the phone and typed in his number. As he handed it back, Liz told everyone she was leaving and they were free to go. She wasn't even done talking for a minute before Peter was gone. Maria couldn't believe how eager he was to get out of there.

Maria went to the library for a few hours after practice to work on some homework before heading home. She was sure her mom wouldn't be there, as she had been working overtime the past couple of weeks. As a police officer, her mom was always working crazy hours. Her precinct was only a ten minute drive away, but Maria still felt like she was much farther sometimes.

The apartment was quiet when Maria got in around 8:00. It was just her and her mom, and so when she was working there was a lot of alone time. She sat on the couch for a while watching Netflix and texting Jessica when there was suddenly a loud explosion outside. Maria bolted to her window as the apartment shook, trying to locate the sound of the blast. She stuck her head out and spotted her favorite deli on fire only a few buildings over. The owner was extremely kind to her and had known her since she was little. Maria quickly dialed the police in a panic, reporting the incident.

It wasn't until she saw Spider-Man himself pull Mr. Delmar and his cat out from the building that Maria could breathe normally again.