APODEMIA ➣ ||P. PARKER||

••chapter twenty four••

With the bell ringing for the class to come to an end, I packed my stuff up quickly and walked out of the room after grabbing tonight's homework.

Peter had been acting strangely, even to the point of not making any eye contact or instead just avoiding my gaze awkwardly.

Maybe he was just nervous.

"Who's making you so sad today?" Flash hooked his arm around mine as we walked down the hallway, "is it those losers at lunch?"

"I'm just scared for the violin thing tomorrow," I lied, hugging back onto Flash's arm as it gave me comfort.

Why was Peter avoiding me so much?

Was it because I didn't meet up with him and Ned in the morning? But during gym class yesterday, he said it was all okay, so what did I do wrong?

What if he found out? It made perfect sense since Peter has his A.I called Karen in his suit, Karen could've told Peter anything he wanted to know down to the last detail.

"Alice, you okay?" Flash nudged me, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"Yeah," I turned my head to face him.

"I have to go make up for a test, bye," Flash gave me a pat on the back before turning around to go in the direction of his Geometry class.

Just before I left school, I texted Zane that I was going to walk home today, partly because of meeting up Peter.

It was only a three or four-minute walk to the nearby neighborhood park, and knowing Peter with his Spider-Man powers, he was probably already there.

When I arrived, I saw Peter sitting on the swing set with his backpack, deep in thought.

"Hey," I called out to him softly while my heart began to speed up, he flinched and turned around, seeing me he'd seen a ghost.

Something felt wrong.

He wasn't going to confess or ask me out.

"Hey," he greeted and got off the swing set, his hand in the pocket of his trousers and got out his Spider-Man mask, he held it out to me, "I- I need... I need to show you something, and I need you to tell the truth."

This was giving my gut a bad feeling, whatever was the 'truth' he wanted from me wasn't going to be good.

I took the Spider-Man mask slowly from his hands, beneath it was a crumpled piece of paper flattened out.

It was the same piece of paper I lost yesterday during P.E that had the code on it. "What did it say, did you solve it?"

He opened his mouth to speak but closed it, he didn't want to answer.

"Karen, roll the footage," Peter ordered with a strained voice, the white eyes of the mask lit up, shooting up a hologram screen and it replayed footage caught by a security camera.

The pounding of my heart got clogged in my throat.

I remembered this moment- day actually- clearly, very very clearly. It was back in 2014 where Maria Hill and I took over the control panel room, assisting in Captain Rogers and Mr. Sam Wilson in taking down the Helicarriers:

My eyes fixed on two armed guards that were entering the control room where Ms. Hill and I were in. I heard Ms. Hill say something on the status, but I walked over to the door, seeing the two guards and pulled the trigger of my gun before they could, implanting bullets into their skull.

And then the footage stopped, the camera zoomed in on my face and displayed a sandy profile picture with personal data listed beside it.

I dropped the Spider-Man mask and piece of paper, my hand hovering over my mouth from shock and inevitably thinking of the voided hole I have stumbled upon.