Parker

6

Soon Peter and I are walking over to the corner of a less crowded, more light, and a less dangerous place as I wait for my ride. I called Tony to tell him that I needed picked up ASAP. Hopefully it'll take less time than the rest of the evening as I've waited for Tony.

"Wow, this does not seem as if it's been your day. Almost dying in a fire, actually being expected to know the content in school now."

I sigh. "Yeah, maybe it's a sign I should just drop school."

"Or maybe it's a sign that you shouldn't hug random people." Peter says. At first I'm concerned that he was actually really uncomfortable earlier but then he cracks an adorable smile.

"Speaking of hugging...."

Peter groans but then he opens his arms wide, letting me give him a hug. The EMTs weren't exactly huggable and I don't think they were legally allowed to give me a hug even though a hug would've stopped my fear attack. Peter remembers to wrap his arms around me. Much better quality hug than a few weeks ago. We haven't hugged since that first day but we've been talking more in class and during passing periods. He walks me down to my art class after chemistry every day and walks with me to the corner where Tony sends Happy to pick me up.

"Good job, Parker."

"Does that mean we're done hugging?" He asks.

"Done with hugging? What type of world is this where there are no hugs and no love? Where hugs are nonexistant so is love and what is this world without love because love is what makes the world run round right?"

"I think that's a bit of a stretch. Maybe a world where hugging only for good huggers?"

"Then you would be in it my friend."

"I don't think I would be."

"You most definetly would be. From my hugging radar I would rate this as a 8.5/10."

"Only 8.5?" He seems offended.

"Well you are kind of just leaving your arms dangling. Like you got to squeeze a little bit occasionally, to let the person know that you're still connecting with them through this hug." He tightens his grip and squeezes. "Yeah, like that! Now you're at a 9.5."

"What makes you rank a hug at a perfect ten?"

"Well that dear Peter is something only people who really know me know. So unless you ever want to hang out you'll never get that perfect ten."

The car Tony sent pulls up next to us. I leave the hug and the warmth that his body provided.

"Wait, what?" Peter's confused face is somehow also adorable.

"See you tomorrow, Peter!"

Tony is sitting at the dining room table when I walk in. He's leaning over different papers which are spread out all over.

"Oh, MJ! How was school today?"

"Good, I made a couple friends, ate some school food, had a cool project in art." By this point, I can tell Tony has checked out. "I also ravishally made out with the hottest boy in school as I was in a fire that a bank robber set off."

"That's good."

"Ok, so I'm going to go do some drugs and come back later."

"Ok." Then Tony realizes what I just said. "Wait, no. MJ! Get back here. Where are you getting these drugs-ugh wrong question! Don't do drugs? No, that should not be a question. Come back here!"

I smirk. "Yes Tony."

"Sorry I spaced out, tell me about your day at school." So I inform him on most everything, except for my hugs with Peter. Somehow I don't think that Tony would appreciate that very well. "Wow, that seems very stressful."

"Not as stressful as the night of the bomb."

Tony tries to say something but the words come out in a jumble mess. The room is silent, it's kind of awkward. Steve snd Natasha walk into the room talking about moving headquarters and upstate.

"Oh, Tony and MJ, hello." Steve says.

We both do a little wave. Natasha grimaces and leaves after grabbing a couple poptarts.

The next morning I see Betty on the video announcements. They show a video of the guy in the skin tight suit whose name turns out to be Spiderman, taking down a group of guys with weird guns. Betty and her co-host begin to talk about something pertaining to how awesome he is for saving the area multiple times. Another video pops up on screen and it has me carrying out the shop owner and the cat out of the burning building. Betty has a big smile.

"Midtown student, MJ Otteman-Stark saved a man and a cat yesterday from a burning building. Good job, MJ. Looks like Spiderman will have to watch his back for another hero of the streets." Betty's co-host says, a little laugh in his voice.

Betty makes a heart with her hands. "Love you, MJ."

As I walk through the halls it feels as if everybody is watching me. People give me high fives or ask to sit by me in class. By the time lunch happens, I feel so overwhelmed. People are trying to sit next to Betty, Cindy, Liz and I. They're all crowding around me and I just feel so clustered in that I'm beginning to hyperventilate. Cindy and Betty don't notice, they're talking to the people next to them. Liz takes notice and pulls me out of the cafeteria. She's starting to help calm me down until a phone call from he dad comes in and then she leaves me.

I pace up and down the hallway, trying to get control of my breathing again. Puppies, elephants, cute and adorable babby otters, rhinos. That sets me off into remembering my mom and the bomb. I hear footsteps so I try to find the nearest restroom. Navigation has never been one of my strongest attributes. I give up on finding the restroom and just go into a room that's open. The teacher isn't in sight, thank goodness. I sit on the floor, looking out the windows and listening to the breeze blow through the leaves, and realy just hoping to stop this terrible feeling.

The door creaks open and Peter pops his head on.

"MJ! There you are. Liz told me that you weren't feeling very well." He sees my tear stained face. "Hey, hey. Let's just take a second to breathe. In, 2, 3. Out, 2, 3." He repeats the breathing sets a couple times which helps.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" I ask, wiping away the mascara that run down my cheeks.

"I used to be in band and I always freaked out before a preformance and so one of my band teachers taught me it."

"That's cool."

"Yeah." Peter clears his throat. "Anyways, do you want to talk about...what caused your panic attack?"

I want to trust Peter. He's making his adorable frog-whose-swallowed-a-fly face which he does whenever he's in deep thouht or concerned. On any other person, this expression would look painfully awkward. He some how works it though, probably because it just somehow matches his personality perfectly. He's kind of closed off but he opens up to me a little bit which makes me want to trust him but at the same time it's also concerning.

I've never really had many friends my own age. When my mom was still alive, she would take me to her party functions and I would get to hang out with the adults. I became accustomed to hanging out with more mature people. It was easier to tell when they wanted something from you. All of their quirks would suddenly change to make you like them and once you fell into the trap and began to feel whatever emotion they wanted you to have, that is when they would pounce. With teenagers, however, there's so many changing personalities in everybody that one day a person might be the nicest person ever and the next they could be talking smack about you three feet away (this happened to Betty recently, something about video announcements).

I can't tell what Peter's motive is. If he's just really nice or if he's trying to humiliate me which is why I shake my head no.

Peter just nods, understanding the difficulty of being afraid to fall back into the feeling of not being able to breathe. He sits next to me, wrapping his arm around me in a hug sort of way. This boy really picks up my needs quickly. We sit there like that until a screech/scream that sounds as if a whale is happily being murdered cuts through the silence of the air.