Thaw

Just a friend.

"I can't believe you're leaving again." MJ says, crossing her arms as she stands in my now empty room, Peter on my bed playing with a Rubix cube.

It was Sunday, later today Happy would come by to pick me up and take me home. Yesterday, after me and Peters long talk, I had called Tony to tell him I finished the assignment.

"I know, I'm really sorry MJ." I sighed and leaned against the door frame.

"Don't be. Its fine, not like you chose to leave." she smiled weakly and Peter sat up to meet his eyes with me making me feel a sense of overwhelming guilt. Oh MJ, if only you knew...

"Is Ned coming over?" she asked after a moment of silence. Right on cue, there was a knock on the door and we heard Rosa greet and direct Ned to my room.

"Hey, Ned." I smiled as he appeared behind me.

"Hey, Astrid. Sorry that you're leaving." He smiled sadly and entered my room, nodding at Peter and MJ.

"I got you this." he turned around and held out a small package.

"Thanks Ned, but you didn't have to get me anything." I laughed lightly and took the small gift.

"Yea but I wanted to, consider it a housewarming gift for where you're going... wait, where are you going?"

"Back upstate. We're still going to keep in touch though, it's not like now that I'm leaving were not going to be friends anymore." I said to all of them.

"Well yea, but I still can't believe you're leaving. Just knowing that you're not going to be right downstairs anymore..." Peter shook his head and let his body fall back on my bed. I didn't know how to reply to that so instead, we were all left simmering in the silence.

"I bet you'll go for a couple of months and then come back again. Let the cycle continue!" Ned exclaimed, trying to ease the tension.

"We can only dream, Leeds." MJ sighed.

Two hours later, Peter and I walked MJ and Ned down to the foyer where Ned's mom came to pick them both up. We had said a rather solemn goodbye full of hugs and threats about what would happen if we lost touch, Ned throwing in a couple jokes accompanied by forced laughter to lighten the mood every now and then.

"You sure you want to do this?" Peter asked as we rode the elevator back up to the apartment.

"Yea, I'm pretty positive." I laughed.

"It's just, you're only 14. Are you really going to join the Avengers?" he asked.

"Peter, I already explained about a million times. Do you seriously still not understand?" I stepped away as much as I could in the tiny compartment and leaned my head on the wall of the elevator.

Soon the elevator came to a stop at my level and we headed back to Rosa and Lorenzo's.

"Well, it sort of came as a surprise." We head back to my room where I climbed out onto the fire escape in an attempt to escape Peters endless questioning. It didn't seem to work though because he followed me out into the cold.

"It's just, it came out of nowhere, I mean day one you're this new girl who's really pretty, and smart, and has a lot of friends, then you move away after JUST enrolling, and then you come back and your only friends are MJ, Ned and I, and now you're an Avenger whos not even FROM EARTH!" He rambled and paced around on the very limited space of the fire escape.

"Peter! Stop, alright? Just chill for a minute." I sighed and pressed my head back against the cold window.

"I'm sorry for keeping all this from you guys, I really am. I know it's hard to process right now but I can't answer anything else, please stop with the questions." I exclaimed.