The Void

Chapter 41 - Study Night

1 Month Later

(Your POV):
As the weeks passed, I noticed a change in Harry. At first it seemed normal, he was grieving and dealing with a lot of new responsibilities at Oscorp. Therefore the sunken eyes and vacant expression could simply be a result of overburden.

But there was more. His skin seemed to become tinted a greenish hue and his eyes often seemed green as well. He grew more agitated at little things, scaring our friend group multiple times with his outbursts. I had talked to Peter about it and he confessed that he was concerned about him as well, but there was nothing that either of us could think of that could help him. He was still refusing guests at his house and when he was at school it was like he wasn't even there.

Although Peter and I were both worried, we didn't know what to do. I mean that's not what normal teenagers had to deal with, so what were you supposed to do when you were afraid that your friend was losing touch with reality?

"Shall we start testing?" I asked Peter, looking at our completed Rube Goldberg before us.

A grin spread across his face as he tossed me a box of matches, "I'll let you do the honors. Just please wait for me to find a fire extinguisher before lighting it, just in case."

"Of course, Pete," I replied absentmindedly as I did last minute checks to make sure that everything was set up properly.

I felt his strong arms encompass me as he leaned in, "so we're using nicknames now, are we?"

"Hmm? Oh yes, only if you don't mind?" I asked, nervously looking up at him.

"Not at all, (Y/N/N)," he replied, kissing my cheek. "Now, let's light this bad boy up."

I struck the match, holding up the flame eye level with him before lowering it down to the string, which caused the flame to travel to a candle and burned another string, thus beginning the system of reactions that we had set up. Nervous about the outcome, I grasped Peter's hand tightly and he pulled me closer to him.

We watched as the box of cereal poured itself into the bowl. It overflowed a bit, but that small error was something easily fixed. Then, like clockwork, the milk followed suit. As the contraption stopped moving, I turned to Peter and gave him a high five.

"I can't believe that we finally got it to work," I exclaimed, way too ecstatic over this stupid school project.

"And I can't believe that you didn't burn the place down," he teased, removing the bowl of cereal and offering it to me.

I accepted it with a smile and shot right back, "hey, I know how to safely use fire!"

"Yeah, sure. That wasn't just luck." He probably would have gone on, but I shut him up by placing a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. Once he finished chewing, he turned to me, "(Y/N), you-you wouldn't mind if I sort of gave some of our scrapped ideas to Ned? It's just that Harry's not really helping out with the project and I didn't want him to fail because he had to do all of the work himself."

"No, of course not and let him know he's free to join us anytime he wants. And if he needs any help with his write up, he has an honors English student just waiting for him to say the word."

"Speaking of write ups, we should probably start getting ours done. If we work diligently enough, we may be able to even be able to finish it before I have to get you back by eleven."

With that, we reset our project so that we could show it the following Monday and then retreated to his room to work on our report. We were soon sprawled across his bed, sharing my laptop as we went through the questions. After working for a couple hours on the report, neither Peter nor I could stay awake.

As I finished typing the last section of the paragraph that we were working on, I heard soft snoring from beside me. I looked down to see Peter sleeping, my heart fluttering at the slight. Without the energy to move much, I closed the laptop and let my head drop onto his chest, slipping into the realm of sleep with him.

I shot up in Peter's bed at the sound of knocking, causing my laptop to slip off of the bed and onto the floor with a loud bang. Muttering a swear under my breath, I picked up the fallen laptop and check the time. 1:18 AM. Who the hell was knocking on the apartment door this early? And knocking was a weak verb, it sounded more like they were trying to break down the door.

"What's going on?" Peter muttered groggily from the bed, rubbing his eyes free from sleep. His eyes widened as he saw me, "shit, what time is it?"

"Past my curfew, that's for sure," I replied, already throwing all of my stuff scattered across the bed and floor into my bag. I checked my phone and sure enough there were a hundred angry texts from my parents. The last one was what scared me the most: we're coming to get you.

"Hello? Can I help you?" Through Peter's door, I heard May's voice ask the unexpected guests. By the sounds of it the visitors had woken her too.

"Where is she?" My father's voice demanded, causing me to groan.

"I'm going to be in so much trouble," I whimpered, throwing my bag over my shoulder.

Peter jumped out of bed, his eyes widening, "your parents are here? Would it help if I went out and explained to them-"

"No!" I cut off frantically, terrified of what would happen if my parents were to recognize him. They would kill him and me. "I-I can handle them, I promise. They, um, they don't really like sharing me with others, so I don't think they'll take to you lightly. I'd rather them not know the face of their target. I'm so sorry that I brought you into this, but I-I'll be fine handling this on my own, I promise."

With that, I kissed Peter's cheek and slipped out of his room, immediately trying to diffuse the tension, "I am so sorry that I'm late, we were finishing up our report and lost track of time. I promise it won't happen again."

Instead of forgiveness, I was met with my parents' icy glares. My mother was the first to speak, "get in the car, (Y/N). We'll deal with you later."

I turned and gave May a sad smile, "thanks for letting us work here, even with the risk that we were going to burn down your apartment. And I'm sorry for causing you this trouble."

With that, I dashed out of the apartment, as though moving faster was going to make my punishment any less severe. However as I slipped into the car to be brought back to our apartment, I knew that I was in for a rough night- well, morning.

-

(A/N): A little quality time with Peter and Harry's descent into madness! I liked the idea of your parents being so close to an unmasked Peter, concealed only by a door, when they know his face from when you had captured Spider-Man, so hopefully that tension is here!