THE GRAND DELUSION [ PETER PARKER ]

webb - 2

general warning: this chapter deals with disordered eating habits and thoughts. if you are struggling, this may not be the best thing for you to read. please remember that you are loved and i'm rooting for you. take care and please stay safe.

{maia}

"Maia," Dr. Amelia Serrano lets out an exasperated laugh, leaning down to nudge the sleeping girl on her doorstep. "Come on, up you go." Maia Webb covers her mouth as a yawn ripples through her being, blinking up at her caregiver who carefully balances a tray of coffee and a bag of pastries from Starbucks in her hands.

"Morning," Maia slowly rises to her feet, knees cracking as she rubs her eyes of sleep. She quickly reaches out to take the coffees from Amelia, freeing her hands so she could unlock the door with ease.

"I take it that you didn't listen and locked your keys inside again." Amelia says with raised eyebrows, fitting her key into the lock and twisting. She nudges the door open, ushering the teenager into the apartment. "I swear you never hear a word I have to say." Though Amelia says this scoldingly, she looks after her teenager with worry in her eyes.

"Sorry, Lia," Maia says sheepishly, heading over to the dining table so she could set breakfast down. She ignores the way she sways at the smell of a butter croissant that she knows she shouldn't have. "I just have a big project coming up and I totally spaced out." That's a lie. Maia's told so many of them though that she's stopped feeling bad about it.

"And now you smell like the hallway and look dead." Amelia says smartly. "Go take a shower and get dressed. I'll drive you to school." Maia smiles gratefully at the doctor, giving her a quick hug to show her gratitude (Amelia groans and says something else about the smell) before heading down the hall to her bedroom. Maia tosses her backpack onto her still made bed, kicking her sneakers off at the wall. She pulls her phone out of her back pocket and plugs it into the wall, watching the screen light up to reveal a flood of notifications— text messages from none other than Tony Stark that she'd stopped replying to three months earlier. She grabs her towel and a fresh pair of clothes and starts up her morning routine.

Maia ignores the insistent throbbing in her skull, moving through her to-do list with ease. By the time she's finished with getting ready for school, first period is over and second period is scheduled to start. With a tired sigh, she grabs her backpack and phone and slips her sneakers back on, heading for her bedroom door. She pauses, however, when she hears Amelia's voice, lowered but still vaguely audible. Maia holds her breath as she listens intently.

"Yup... Yeah, Tony, she's doing fine." Amelia says. "No, I'm taking her to school in a bit. She's just getting ready... Hey, listen, I know you're worried about her but--" Amelia stops talking, and Maia assumes that she's listening to whatever Mr. Tony Stark has to say on the other end of the call. "She's been distant, Tony. She spaces out all the time, and I know Midtown is a tough school, but I found her sleeping in the hallway because she forgot her keys... Again. Someone could have hurt her. She's just... not in the right headspace lately." Maia shifts anxiously on foot, upset to learn that she hasn't been as good at hiding this stuff as she thought.

"You wanna talk to her after school or something? I really can't get through to her." Something in Maia snaps at hearing that-- she doesn't want to talk to Tony Stark, the man that decided she wasn't good enough to keep anymore. She knows the bullshit reasons for sending her to live with Dr. Serrano. Natasha and him wanted the best for her and they felt that they couldn't give that. In reality, they had just realized that supporting the child that they had orphaned wasn't as rewarding as they'd thought and couldn't absolve them of their guilt.