Black Swan ▹ Marvel

ONE: VENUS FLY TRAP

Elizabeth walks down the street of Queens with her nose in a book and one earbud in her ear. She tries to focus in on Halsey's vocals rather than the noisy traffic surrounding the streets. Her music is interrupted by her phone's ringtone. She checks her smart watch to see it's Liz calling. She answers even though she doesn't want to talk at the moment.

"Speak," she says as she puts her book away and crossed the street and enters a sandwich shop. Liz isn't speaking, just squealing on the other end of the line. Elizabeth walks to the counter and the cashier smiles at her.

"What can I get for you?" she asks with a wide smile. Liz is still squealing with delight.

"Can I have a ham and cheese on white with ranch and lettuce. Toasted please," she orders, "can you please talk or hang up?"

"Peter asked me to be his girlfriend!" Liz shouts happily in her phone. Elizabeth sucks her mouth in like she had tasted something sour.

"Oh, that's great. When?" she asks her friend as use her watch to pay for her sandwich. Elizabeth digs a five dollar bill out of her bag and sticks it in the tip jar.

"Earlier today when he walked me home," she cheered. Peter Parker, how does Elizabeth describe him? He was handsome and he actually had manners unlike Flash, who had no manners and just wasn't pleasing to anyone's eye.

"That's nice, Liz," Elizabeth says in a strained voice.

"Do you want to come over? I just bought the Vampire Diaries box set," she asks with a hopefully tone of voice.

"No, I'm almost home and I promised my mom we could watch this show she's obsessed with," she responds, a lie obviously. There's no way Elizabeth's going near Liz by choice now that she's with Peter. She had always dreamed that Peter could be hers one day, but a taller, prettier Venus Fly Trap named Liz Allen attracted Peter instead of her. She takes her sandwich after it's ready and walks to her apartment as fast as the heavy backpack on her shoulders would allow. She unlocks the door in a frenzy and shut the door behind her and locks it tight.

"How was school?" Jessica Copper asks as she cradled a plate of tortellini in her lap as she sits on the couch in front of the TV.

"It was okay, no trouble as usual," Elizabeth replies as she sits at the kitchen island and unwraps her sandwich. She eats and savors every bit of the sandwich as she thinks about her current predicament. Her life was perfect except Peter Parker and his stupid face had to weasel into the picture in the middle of the first grade, literally. Elizabeth remembered the day he arrived when pictures being taken and wedged himself between Liz and Elizabeth back when they both went by Liz and threw his arms around her companion like he was her best friend while she stuck with his freakishly sharp elbows in her ribs and no arms around her shoulders. Ever since Peter had always seemed to be wedged in between Liz and Elizabeth. Everywhere she goes with Liz Peter Parker or at least talk about him followed and the worst part about it is that she loved him. Or at least she thinks she loves him.

"Just pay attention in class, Lizzy. Yale will still be there when you're done with high school," Jessica tells her daughter and then bites down on a tortellini. She groans because the steaming plate of pasta is obviously too hot. Their relationship had been on the rocks since Mom refused to let her go to Yale early even though she already had enough credits thanks to all the summer school and online classes Elizabeth took. Elizabeth knew she would never let her go, not after what happen to her older sister, Ryan.

"I know, Mom. I'm taking care of business," Elizabeth replies and Jessica lets out a satisfied huff, "so are we going to watch Firefly or what?"

▹

"Elizabeth, come down from there," Elizabeth's gym teacher, Mister Drake shouted as she climbed the infamous rope that hangs from the ceiling of the Midtown High gym. 

She stops climbing and looks down with a frown, "But you just told me to climb it."

"I said wait until I said go, follow directions," Drake replies as Elizabeth sighs. She climbs down, she hears Flash whistle. His friends snicker.

"Nice ass, Copper," he purrs in near her ear, it sends shivers of disgust walking down her spine. She turns and looks at him.

"Are you upset because you didn't get into Yale?" the blonde asks innocently.

"How did you know?" he demands as redness creeps onto his face and neck.

"Because I got in, only one student per class gets into Yale early and I got in extra early," Elizabeth says smugly and folds her arms over her chest.

"Quit your chattering," Drake says and blows his whistle so hard that spit flies out and hits the cheek of the girl Elizabeth was supposed to be racing. Her face was twisted in disgust as she uses the sleeve of her shirt to wipe the saliva from her cheek in disgust.

"Race," Drake shouts and blows his obnoxious whistle again. Elizabeth nimbly climbs the rope thanks to years of gymnastics and a shit ton of upper body strength. She's up the rope and back on the gym floor by the time the other girl reaches the top. 

"Can I leave now?" Elizabeth asks with a huff. Mister Drake stares her straight in the eye.

"Just wait on the bleachers, Copper," he answers and tears his gaze away from the girl. She let out an annoyed huff and walk away to the small section of bleacher pulled from against the wall. She sits down and the girl she raced joined her, but distances herself a bit. Elizabeth now watches Peter Parker, the object of my affection and Liz's new boyfriend struggle to climb the rope.

"Haven't seen you around here," Elizabeth says when the girl pulls a sketchbook out from what seemed like nowhere. She looks at the blonde with a face void of makeup like mine whenever I was in gym.

"That's because I usually skip this class," she explains in a monotone voice, "Drake is my mom's no good boyfriend, he is always trying to win my approval so he gives me an A anyway."

Elizabeth holds her hand out for the other girl to shake and introduce herself. "Elizabeth Copper." She stares at Elizabeth's waiting hand for a moment before scooting closet and shaking it with a bone-crunching grip.

"Michelle Jones. My friends call me MJ, but I don't have any at the moment," she tells Elizabeth and lets go of her hand. 

She twist her mouth to the side, a habit when Elizabeth is puzzled by something. "Why?"

"Don't need them," she says with a shrug.

"My sister used to feel that she didn't need any friends besides the one friend she had," She tells MJ.

"What's wrong with that?" she asks in a perplexed tone, it's the only emotion she's shown besides the disgust from Drake's saliva.

"She's not well," Elizabeth replies, but fails to elaborate.

"Have you ever been to detention?" she asks Elizabeth, her face is void of any emotion once again.

"No." How course she hadn't. She's Elizabeth Copper, she's fourteen years old and technically already a student at Yale University.

"Are you free later?" Michelle asks me to which she nods her head yes.

"You're in for a treat."