The Life I'm Running From

27\ Apparently I'm Not "Me" Enough

As much as I hate to admit it, staying at the Avengers Headquarters wasn't... bad. Most of the superheroes minded their own business, and the ones that didn't seemed to have no qualms about me staying here. (Tony Stark was an exception, but isn't he always?) Steve made it a part of his daily routine to talk to me. Wanda, though disappointed I had turned down her offer, held conversation with me most afternoons. She had an interesting life. If we had met in high school we wouldn't have been friends, but hey, this wasn't high school.

I still got many curious and suspicious looks in the hallways—from Natasha Romanoff, Rhodey, and Vision mainly. They knew I was holding back with information. But then again, so did Peter, and he didn't seem to care.

When I wasn't running laps around the compound, or swimming in the lake—which for some reason, I hadn't realized was on the grounds until Steve was driving me home from McDonalds—I was hanging out with Peter. We spent time doing everything you could around the compound. One day we hung out all day in the training room, and he showed me almost every trick his expensive Stark Industries suit had. It took hours and felt like minutes. I got some great photos of Peter tangled in his own webbing. Hello new screensaver.

Sometimes, when we decided to lounge around on the couch, he'd tell me his own superhero stories. He told me of a villain named Vulture. A girl named Liz he took to homecoming who happened to be Vulture's daughter. He told me how hard it was to balance his school life, personal life, and superhero life. This afternoon we were talking about that again. It amazed me how many stories he had to tell, how many near death experiences he had gone through. Of course I had more, but I never thought he'd be anywhere close.

We were in Peter's room. It looked more like a guest bedroom, because he had never bothered to decorate. He said there was no point, given he spent less than a week's worth of nights here every year. I guess me being here was the exception. We were lying beside each other on the bed horizontally, so our feet dangled off the edge. Wanda had raised her eyebrows the first time I had hung out with Peter alone in his room. Even today, she still didn't believe me that there was nothing between us.

"Being a superhero doesn't sound too fun," I said. He had just finished a story about getting beaten up by some of the other Avengers at an airport.

Peter shrugged. "It's not about 'fun'. It's about helping people."

I shifted onto to my side so I could face him. His eyes were trained on the ceiling, but I thought I saw his shoulders tense as I got closer. "Does it ever get too much? Like, make you regret you ever got these powers?"

"It has, once or twice." Peter's eyes lowered. "Did I ever tell you why I transferred to J. M. Michaels?"

"Because you had a problem with a teacher or something." I shifted so my hands were underneath my head. "But that's not the reason, is it."

He shook his head, the blanket tousling his hair. "Nope. There was a villain, and he found out too much about me. He threatened my friends, and they all found out my identity. I stopped him, but Mr. Stark agreed that I should leave the school. It was hard. Leaving all my friends, going to a new school, it made me wish I had never been a superhero at all. It took awhile before I remembered how many people I was helping, how many lives I had saved. And why I couldn't give up."

I thought about that for a minute. Peter had regretted his life, his identity, but yet, here he was. I had regretted my own life and I had abandoned it all. Who then, was the brave one?

"What were your friends like?" My voice was quiet.

Peter turned his head to face me. His eyes, which reminded me of chocolate milk, were soft. "They were good friends. There was Ned. He liked Star Wars like me, and, well, you know I'm kind of a geek—"