MAGIC TRICKS [PETER PARKER]

SIX

I WAS FUMING.

"Why not?!" My voice raised a decibel as I felt my heart begin to thud, blood boiling.

My mother stood across from me, arms crossed defiantly. "Nadia. Now is not the time to be acting out-"

"It's not acting out," I spat quickly in response, fists clenched by my sides. "Is it incredulous for me to want to be a normal kid? To want to spend some time with my parents for once?!" My mother's hardened, stoic face fell away, revealing the hurt underneath.

"Sweetheart... You know your father and I are busy with our work-"

I felt the hot tears pricking at my eyes as the anger ate away at my heart. "Work. Work- God, is that all you can think about?!" I countered, my heart pumping wildly. For years it had been like this; my parents loved me, I knew, but they were always wrapped up in their work, too invested in that to do their most important job- to be my parents. "You're brain surgeons, in what world did you think having a child would work out?"

"We're busy, we don't have time to cater to your every needs, to make it to every one of your award ceremonies," my father interjected.

"One, Dad. You've been to one." Tears were rolling down my cheeks now, and I batted them away with the backs of my hand. "You push and push and push, but you never support. You never support."

My father had inched closer to my mother, their eyes wide as my voice got louder. "I try so hard to please you, t-to be everything you want me to be-"

"Nadia, h-honey calm down," my father said, suddenly very quiet. His dark eyes shone with fear as he clutched onto my mother. They shrunk back into the wall.

Anger had overwhelmed all of my senses. I didn't even notice the fear in my parents' eyes, the trembling of my mother's lips as I drew closer, my own eyes a blazing hot white- the same color as the misting energy that swirled around my fingers.

"I try so hard. I try so hard-"

"Nad, you okay?"

I blinked myself  back to reality, turning my head to see Ned glancing at me curiously. I scowled; I wasn't in my old house, I wasn't standing in the house that I had burnt to the ground with my parents inside, I wasn't having the last conversation with my parents. No, I was on the bus in Washington D.C, with Ned and Liz, and Flash and Abraham and Cindy. I was there, that was the reality.

"Yeah," I said quietly, sighing. "Yeah. I'm okay."

I  was worried- worried about Peter. It had been an hour since he'd saved us all from the elevator shaft, but still, he was no where to be found. I wondered if that was the last time I would ever speak to him, which lead me to remember the night I had last spoken to my parents.