Close to Home - Peter Parker - Spiderman - MCU

Chapter 2 - Broom Closet

Y/n POV: Welcome to Y/n's POV. I imagine I won't be going back to 3rd POV in a while... enjoy

    I shut the door behind me carefully. I walk, sluggishly, toward my bedroom. I open and shut my door quietly; it is 10 pm. My father is probably long gone and deep into a dream by now; he works a normal 9-5 job as a computer engineer at a small software company. I stand in my room and immediately strip my sweaty work clothes off and put my robe on. I throw my clothes into the small, mesh laundry basket by my desk.
My desk...
Homework...
    I quickly run to the shower, and I attempt to be as quiet as possible, even though I know it's impossible since my Dad's room is right next to the bathroom. He's used to me getting home late and showering. I slip off my robe and move the baby blue shower curtain out of the way, replacing it once I step in. The warm water engulfs me, and I begin to wash my hair and body.
    A fresh start. I could have a fresh start.
I continue grabbing the bottle of shampoo, pumping a dollop into my hand.
    A fresh start. New attachments. New friends. New responsibilities.
I rub the shampoo through my roots.
    Friends my age. Smart friends. Ambitious people.
I rise and repeat with the conditioner.
A giant pond. Sink or Swim.
I realize I'm holding my breath with all these thoughts, and I gasp. Sometimes in deep thought... I forget to breathe.
    "Be the best."
A familiar haunting voice rings in my ear.
~~~~
    My hair is wrapped in a towel as I sit down and start my chemistry homework. I scribble through knowing it. I have my periodic table out, but my memory is excellent, and I have the information about the most common elements memorized. I'm more of a physics girl. Chemistry is fun, though.
11 pm Math homework now...
12 am English reading...
1 am I'm asking for earlier shifts next week...

I plop into my bed. I scroll on my phone, and I open the news app to see if anything interesting happened, but there was nothing but old headlines.
Car Accident on 4th street leaves one fatally injured.
Spiderman Back in Action?: A long hiatus since London...
Tony Stark: The man, the myth, the legend: Friends Remember him in his last days...
Captain America: Cap, Where You At?: An Underground Rapper's New, Heartfelt Tribute
New Cure Found: Potential Pandemic-Worthy Coronavirus Cure Found
I turn off my phone and light on my bed stand. I drift.
.........................................
    The alarm. I keep telling myself I'm going to change it. There is no reason I should wake up with this much stress in the morning due to that noise. I rip the sheet off my body and throw my feet over to the side of my bed towards my window, my million-dollar view, the neighbors fire escape, and another building's brick wall. If I walk up to my window and look down from our 10th-floor apartment, I can see the dumpsters behind our complex, and if I'm lucky, I'll catch someone diving. I rub my face to try and stimulate some life in my nerves from my lackluster night of sleep. I thud down the hall to grab food before I get ready. I see my father sitting at the dining table already with his coffee, sipping away. My eyes shoot open when I realize what he's reading. The Manila folder that Mr. Nicholson gave me was on the table, and the letter was in his hands.
    "Dad!" I shout as I lazily try to snatch the paper from him, but he dodges me.
    "This is really great... you should give it a read." He says menacingly while slightly laughing.
    "Mr. Nicholson gave it to me! I don't know what I want to do about it yet," I honestly have not made a decision.
"Well Mr. Nicholson is a very eloquent writer, for a, how did you put it again, 'a crack addict?'" Ryan's inflection goes up at the end of the sentence, as do his eyebrows.
"He's not actually a crack addict! Now give it!" I demand, trying to grab the page, and Ryan keeps it just out of my reach.
"I can't allow you to throw away your opportunities. You're applying for this school. I'm putting my foot down as your father." He grows stern. The goofiness has escaped his body and now he looks at me with a boisterous, powerful glare.
"Dad, you can't just make me attend the school you want me to. I have a lot at school. I don't wanna leave..." I sigh, knowing it was a blatant lie.
"Y/n, lets be real," He sits me down across from him, "I do not know how they managed, but none of your old friends blipped... they're onto bigger and better things... You should be too!" He reaches across the table and grabs my hand, "I want to proofread your application by tomorrow night. It's a simple writing prompt and I already patched together all your transcripts, which Mr. Nicholson happily forwarded to me."
I tense. "Dad I have work."
"It never stopped you before, plus tomorrow is Wednesday. Notice how I said evening? You're always off Wednesdays..." Ryan triumphantly prances away down the hallway with his coffee mug to get ready for work.
Being forced to leave has really emptied every ounce of curiosity I had about my decision. I do not want to step into anything unfamiliar.
~~~~
Do I even do my homework now if I might start at a new school soon...
You have to get IN first. It's the middle of the semester. Will they even bother?
Maybe this is all just stressful for now, but if I don't get in, it'll be all over...
I ponder my options as I walk down the halls of my crusty, crowded public high school. I almost learned to enjoy the smell of body odor and marijuana mixed together in a symphony of prepubescent pheromones. The tile is checkered with a haphazard pattern; most of the tiles were white, and then a random red one would appear out of sync with the others; it has always bothered me. Then, with no rhyme or reason, a blue one snugged up against the brick wall; the sporadic tile pattern here has always infuriated me. Lockers shutting and opening during passing normally would echo, but the hallways' body count does not allow the sound to carry. I kid with a guitar case walks past me. Artsy...
I am not artsy.
~~~~~
"Y/n can you sweep and mop, then you're good to go," Angela, my manager, chimes from her station plating food.
I nod. As I make my way back to the broom closet I catch a glimpse at the TV playing in the diner...
"Spiderman Awakes: Art Thieves will pay..."
I sigh. 

Oh, Spiderman... I roll my eyes. 

You just always show up when I need to be reminded...

I snap out of my haze and realize I'm at the broom closet. I reach in and grab the broom and dustpan. I begin to sweep the filthy floors. The diner was a heaping mess most of the time in the kitchen. The diner was cute and sorta retro past the counter, but the cooks and waitresses took many liberties when it came to making a giant mess. As appointed busgirl, I now must sweep the mess and mop the mess I did not create. Hell, I even pretend to struggle mopping to potentially make people feel bad for me to manipulate them into cleaning their own mess as they make it.
Is that too manipulative?
Am I really just making me look like a weak busgirl?
Is this helping the situation?
I sigh and laugh as I sweep closer and closer to the Television.
"Spiderman helps local authorities catch two crafty art thieves who have been dormant since the blip. Many think the two blipped and returned to their life of petty art crime. The two men, Antonio Tenari and Bruce Faulkner, are now in police custody after ambushing the opening of the new exhibit at The MET, 'A look behind the Glass," by artist Henderson Lolameer..."
The news lady trails off as I make my way back behind the bar to sweep. Two men sat and swished their glasses around and chatted.
The blonde man in the Yankees hat spoke first, "Did you see Lil' ol' Spider-Brat swinging around before we came in here..."
"He's probably taking a victory lap or something," The second man was olive-skinned and wore a deep green hoodie, "Am I supposed to thank him?" 

The men chuckle and clink their glasses. 

"I mean, he's no Tony Stark, but he's the best we got..." The bartender, Jim, chimes in. His floppy hair straying close to his eyes.
"He's a fancy swinging security system. It's nice to have him, I'll admit, but now he's off catching white-collar crime in Manhattan? Where was he today..."
I lose the conversation as I walk through the kitchen doors. The swinging doors nudge my heel on its way towards me as I walk away. I skip in pain, quickly regretting most of my life choices. I make my way to grab the mop. Spiderman and his whereabouts or business were none of my current concerns.
~~~~~~
Click Click Clack

Prompt: Name a time in your life where science or math did not help you solve a problem. What was the problem? How did you solve it? If a similar problem arises soon, knowing what you know now, would you still execute the same solution?

It's funny how the writing prompt to attend a STEM school is literally about how not every problem cannot be solved with math.

I begin to write. Deciding to not give much thought to the prompt and going straight into it, I decided I was too tired to try hard and just go for the gush...

Can a moment really be measured by importance by the words, feelings, or sensations in or surrounding it. I remember the last time I saw my mother...

~~~~

I finished and forwarded it to my Dad's email. We did not own a printer; I would not print it downstairs and make a whole scene at 2 in the morning. He wanted it by tomorrow night, but I was up anyway. I slump over to my bed after closing my laptop. I was already changed into a giant t-shirt and sweat shorts. I allow myself to crawl and place my cold and limp body underneath my sheets. Reaching over, I turn off my lamp and stare at the ceiling. I reminisce over days I missed from before the blip. I used to have 2 really close friends at school. Rhonda and Paris... they were twins and loved computers. They inspired me to take my love of physics and math into computers, and it surprised me. The girls lived near me in Brooklyn... They finished high school during the blip... I was long gone. They reached out and said they moved to California to go to school. Its funny, Rhonda goes to USC, and Paris, UCLA. The twin rivalry continued. I've called them a couple times, but they're adults now. We have a lot less in common. It is hard to make conversation. The blip changed everything. Everything that happened before seems so trivial, and now that we know what it's like to lose it all, everything is put in perspective.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed part two. I realize I probably will have to switch POV's mid-chapter starting soon because it'll help the exposition go smoother. I'll mark it in bold, though. LMK what you think! I think each chapter is gonna be about 2,000 words each. LMK, if it's a good length, I can't tell.