fearless || peter parker

five || if ten million fireflies

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. After meeting Harry at lunch, I realised that he was in my shop class. He sat, I'm pretty sure, where Peter should have, but I couldn't remember his exact seat. Peter had only shown up a few times the first week, and was gone today- not a good track record to start the year with.

"Isn't he nice?" Nitara said to me as we were walking home. "He helped me split the wood. I've been trying to do that all last week."

"I thought you were good at shop," I mused, wanting to move onto another subject other than school.

Nitara rolled her eyes as we crossed the street, on the corner of Winter. "Harry's better than me. I'd rather learn new stuff."

I shrugged, stopping at the corner by the store I had gone into this morning. "I guess that makes sense. But hey, did you happen to get working on my blouse?"

"I left it at home to soak- hey!"

Nitara pointed at the sky, and I tried to follow her finger unsuccessfully. "Check it out! Did you see him? The Spider-Man?"

I raised my eyebrows at Nitara, and she cocked her head at me like I had been living under a rock. "Hello? Spider-Man? From Youtube, and the Avengers and stuff?"

I shrugged again. "I don't really catch up with that stuff."

I was about to say goodbye to Nitara when I saw him too. My eyes were as wide as saucers when he swung, like on a rope attached to a building, across the street, a couple blocks ahead of us. "Nevermind! I'm catching up. That was cool. How is that even physics-"

"What?" Nitara said, squinting in the same direction. "He's gone."

"No," I said truthfully. "He's just over- oh, he turned."

Nitara huffed. "Darn. I don't know how he does it- but then again, he's affiliated with the Avengers. Tony Stark's tech is crazy."

"Yeah," I breathed, staring at the part of the sky where the so-called Spider-Man once was. "See you tomorrow."

Nitara was already halfway down her street when I zoned back in and stumbled on my way home. I never really cared about superheroes- Bruce Banner was an exception, even though he's gone AWOL again. This Spider guy sounded interesting, though. I had seen clips and bits of the Avengers in the news, of course- but ever since my dad died in the battle of New York, its been tiring to think about. Even nearly five years later. But I was pretty sure Spider-Man wasn't an Avenger anyways, having not really heard of him, so I steered my mind away from the subject.

When I reached my building on Ascan Avenue, the door to my apartment was unlocked. That meant that Madison was off from work today, so I got to see her face to face when I walked through the door. It seemed she was making something in the kitchen, but when I walked in, she dropped the knife into the sink and gaped at me.

"Finally! You know, I haven't seen you over a whole day-"

Madison's chocolate hair fell in curls over her face as she rushed over to where I stood. Her hair, although the same colour of mine, was infinitely curlier than my sad waves that resembled frizz half the time.

I was entangled in a hug by my older sister. "I don't work tonight. Do you want to go out? We can go get some Starbucks? And go shopping, maybe. I just got a raise at work. We can celebrate, my treat."

Madison didn't elaborate on her raise because apparently, she worked at some secret company that even knowing the name of was dangerous. She worked day hours and night hours and call ins and as curious as I was, it let us keep the apartment we had lived in ever since my mom decided to live here when dad died. Now that they're both gone, we found it easier to build a new life on old foundations.