"How do I know----"

Nikolas lowered his voice, feeling embarrassed for even asking. Covering the microphone of the phone with his hand so that his mouth was as close as he could. He abruptly jumped on the bed staring at the ceiling.

"How do I know if I like someone the way Peter likes Liz Allen." He finally said it, even starting to bite his nails.

There was a long silence, Nikolas took the phone from his ear checking if the call was still on line and had not dropped. Until he heard a snore from the other side.

"TONY!"

"Oh, sorry. It's just that i don't even know who Liz Allen is." The billionaire answered. "It must be like early morning over there, why aren't you asleep? Don't you have school stuff? You said this call was an emergency.

"AND IT IS! I-I can't...I can't sleep if you don't help me answer the question."

"Look, kid, I'm terrible at these things, but when I met Pepper, I just knew that I was going to spend the rest of my life with her. My eyes never left her the first time I saw her. And then people tend to kiss and do other things you're too young to know." Nikolas felt Tony's smile even though he couldn't see him. "Why? Is there a special girl for you? someone i should know about?

And this time Nikolas was the one who quickly hung up the phone.

"Do you think they have a super-cool-secret-lair like the villains do in the movies?" Ned said watching the red dot move, Peter turned to see him while shooting a spider web at the wall. Nikolas was eating doritos while playing with Peter's legos with a notebook next to his knee.

"A gang that smuggles illegal weapons with a boss who uses a vulture's suit? Yes Ned, obviously they have a super-cool-secret-lair." Peter said sarcastically making Nikolas, who was sitting on the floor, laugh.

Peter smiled and turned back to his desk to continue improving his spiderwebs launchers. The afternoon passed and the positions changed. Ned had the Spiderman mask on when Peter was upside down on the ceiling. The looks that Nikolas and Peter exchanged at moments, it was embarrassing. Every time Peter felt eyes on him, he didn't even try to guess who it was because Nikolas would be looking at him as if that would answer whatever was going on inside his head. 

"This is going to take too long, they have made at least 5 stops in different areas." Ned said getting out of the bed to sit on the floor and put what was missing from the lego star.

Peter came down from the ceiling when he noticed that Nikolas was falling asleep, although he woke up when he felt Peter sit next to him on the bed.

"What are you drawing?" He asked curiously and Nikolas opened the notebook. "That's a...?

"Suit." Nikolas finished interrupting him. "If I'm going to do friendly neighbor things like you, I can't just expose myself.

"That's a very good idea! So cool, I remember my first suit, it was a mess but it helped me ....."

Peter stopped talking when he felt Nikolas lean on his shoulder. He just sighed not knowing what to do when he saw that Ned had also fallen asleep leaning against the wall and the Lego star in the middle. you talk a lot. Peter remembered Nikolas's words and denied with a smile. Peter closed his eyes and rested his head on Nikola's.

"THEY STOPPED!"

Ned suddenly yelled causing them both to wake up suddenly. Nikolas quickly got up from Peter's chest, reacting to the scream with his hands in defense causing his energy to knock some things off Peter's desk. Realizing that it was only their friend, he raised an eyebrow awkwardly.

"Maryland." The spider trinity said at the same time. 

"Their super-cool-secret-lair must be there." Nikolas continued. "What is a Maryland?

"Maryland is a state that is not far from D.C." Peter said as he turned to look at his poster for the decathlon competition. "Hey, but ...----

"I'd better get going before night falls." Ned interrupted taking his backpack. "I am quite excited.

Neither of them spoke first, Peter acted distracted as if anything in his room was soon of interest and Nikolas looked at his hands as if his fingers were also very interesting. Neither of them wanted to talk about how they were before Ned yelled.

"I'm not excited like he is. I am quite scared, I had never been to a Maryland. It's far from here. I have never gone on a trip." Nikolas spoke first but without looking up. 

"You can be a little scary, I mean...t-the other you, both versions of you can help us to stop the vulture that threw me from many meters above." Peter said with a soft tone sitting next to him on the bed. "The decathlon team will go to washington, Ned and I have the direct pass but you...----

"Well, I have a scholarship with Tony Stark, it can't be difficult to say that I want to enter as a substitute for Flash, although I don't like him very much." Nikolas laughed and Peter looked at him with a smile.

"Who would have thought, we are really working as the spider trinity."

For a moment there were no words. Nikolas felt what Tony had told him when he first saw Pepper. He didn't want to take his eyes off Peter. And people tend to kiss, Nikolas heard his voice on the call. Peter turned to tell him something, he even raised his thumb to point somewhere but Nikolas pressed his lips against his as he squeezed his eyes shut, taking Peter by surprise who was still wide-eyed with his thumb, now, pointing at nothing.

When Nikolas pulled away, his eyes were still closed and his lips were still up. When he opened them, Peter was looking at him, still unable to process the moment. Nikolas opened his mouth but nothing came out of it. He felt everything at that moment, shame, emotion, adrenaline, the same adrenaline that his heart felt when he ran on the school field.

"I need to leave here. Now."

Nikolas grabbed his backpack and his cheeks burned as if they were going to explode. He even thought that vulnerability would cause a transformation but nothing happened, there were no voices whispering to him. For the first time, he was reacting like a human.

(31/12/22) 

Oh my god, we reached the last day of the year.

The last change I made to these books was in September 2020, a few months after I finished the first edition and I have never been so happy to have improved my writing.

With the No Way Home book I only made 6 chapters, I am very excited to return to this first book, it makes me nostalgic, I loved writing homecoming very much.

By the way, if you follow me on tiktok (xpeterbanana) I'm uploading very cute edits! <3

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! (It's not midnight yet here where I am but it still counts).