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chapter twelve
BITTER ARE THE WARS
BETWEEN BROTHERS
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THE DOOR TO THE pub closes with a click, effectively shutting out the noise of conversation and leaving Graham, Lena, and Peter alone in the streets of Prague. Peter's mood is a direct contrast to Graham's. The shorter boy seems like a weight has been taken off his shoulders as he grips onto both straps of his backpack with a smile on his face. He spins around with his mouth open to say something, only for his expression to halt once he catches Graham's frown.

"What the hell just happened?" Graham demands.

Peter shrugs, leading them further away from the pub by taking backward steps down the empty street. "I feel like I did the right thing. I feel lighter now— EDITH was more of a burden to me than a gift, you know?"

Graham glances at Lena as if pleading for help. She sighs, kicks a stray pebble away, and says, "It seemed really sudden to me, but Peter seems confident in his choice. And, like he said earlier, it was his choice."

Peter's eyes trail over Graham's appearance, catching the unease wrinkling his forehead and how his voice has the patient yet firm tone of an older brother scolding his siblings. The smile still pulling up his lips freezes on his face, as thin as a hairline fracture along a mirror. He stops walking. They're now in a secluded section of the street that's lined with stone architecture— everything abandoned, their surroundings as dark as the mood is becoming. Lena can see uncertainty plaguing his features like ink spilling onto fresh paper; her gut twists with dread.

"You think I made a mistake," he says. It's not a question, but a blatant fact.

"All I'm saying is I think that happened really quickly," Graham responds, still in that patient, calm tone. "Maybe you should go in there and ask for them back."

Peter scoffs, half in disbelief at the suggestion, half in annoyance. "Oh, yeah. I can imagine that conversation. 'Hey, Beck, I know I just switched EDITH's control over to you and delivered this really awesome speech about how Mr. Stark would like you and you're an Avenger, but Graham thinks I acted too quickly, so can I have them back? Thanks.'"

Lena swallows, glancing between the two boys. While Graham is trying to keep the situation from escalating and is clearly reigning in his anger to keep from exploding, Peter is like a kettle whistling steam. Too much of it is trapped underneath his lid, and since he's been keeping it shoved down for way too long, some of the pressure is being alleviated toward Graham. She knows her best friend's issues with anger. He can get frustrated quickly if someone provokes him, which leads to him saying things he doesn't mean. She just hopes Peter won't poke the bear too much and make him snap.

Neither of them appears to want to back down from this. Lena wets her lips, stepping closer to them. Someone needs to act as the mediator before things get ugly.

"Guys, you both have good points, but maybe we shouldn't do this in the middle of the street," she says. "We should go back to the hotel, cool off, and then we can talk."

It's as if a bubble is encasing the two boys and her words had merely bounced off of it. They seem to have gone through one ear and out the other, neither of them so much as sparing her a glance.

Graham continues to try and keep his voice level, but Lena can hear it shaking with the effort it takes not to be snarky right back. "Peter, all I'm saying is you got rid of one of your last pieces of Tony in the blink of an eye."

"Oh, like you were close to him?" Peter demands, his brow furrowing sarcastically. "You said it yourself in there— you hardly had a conversation with him. So how do you know what he would have wanted?"

Lena wets her lips anxiously, wracking her brain with something else to say that will stop this argument from escalating, but part of her knows it's too late. This conversation needs to play out.

The tension rises, becoming a crackling, living thing that snakes between the two opposing teenagers and turns friends into foes. Lena knows that Peter's anger toward Graham would be more subdued if he hadn't been under so much pressure lately, but Graham doesn't, so his jaw tenses in irritation at Peter's snappy tone.

He dodges the question, some of the patience leaking from his voice and leaving his words jagged as he points out, "You don't even know what that thing does. You've had it for barely over twenty-four hours, and you just put it in the hands of, basically, a stranger."

"He's not a stranger!"

"Oh, so he buys us lemonade and looks a little like Tony in those glasses and suddenly you know everything about him?" Graham quips, restraint lost, his sentences made from pointed edges that are meant to tear into someone like shards of glass. His eyebrows are drawn in close, creating creases along the dark skin of his forehead. Anger flashes in his eyes as he takes a step forward. "He's not Tony. You know why? Because Tony is gone!"

"You think I don't know that?" Peter demands in a shout. A flush creeps up the pronounced cords of his neck, his body completely tense and yet trembling with rage. "I was there! We were there! But where were you on that day, huh? Where were you?"

Shadows explode from Graham, so thick they douse out the few street lights surrounding them until the three teenagers are nearly smothered with darkness. They block out the stars and moon, cocooning them in a seemingly endless void. Lena stifles a gasp of fright. She knows that it's a symptom of his anger — sometimes his control on his powers slips when met with strong negative emotions — but she has never seen this many shadows expel from him at once with that amount of force. His expression is cutthroat, mouth pulled into a grim line and eyes wholly black as if his pupils had tripled in size, the contours of his body becoming one with the darkness before he reins the shadows back in as quickly as they had come.

For the first time, Lena sees a flicker of fear on Peter's face. He'd taken a step back, his eyebrows pinched and hands up to block an oncoming blow. She recalls the story Beck had told them about his dimension's version of Graham. A supervillain. Someone who had tried to kill her. Judging by the way Peter looks at him with fright for the first time, she'll bet anything that Peter is thinking about it, too.

Silence prevails for a few thundering heartbeats until Graham says, his voice clipped, "I'm going back to the hotel." He takes a step closer to the group of shadows near the base of the building closest to him, but stops short. "Oh, but before I do, MJ picked up that thing you broke off the Ferris wheel. You should probably get it back from her."

He disappears into the shadows.

Lena has never heard silence be so loud. It's deafening, somehow louder than their shouts had been, smothering the vacant street and wrapping around Lena's throat until she almost feels like she can't breathe. Her fingers creep up to her airway. Then they trail to the nape of her neck, rubbing it as if to expel an ache, restless as always.

Peter doesn't say a word. She knows how he gets when he's upset like this— quiet, reclusive, so tainted by anger and hurt that he doesn't want to talk to anyone in fear of lashing out at them. His hands are curled into tight fists at his sides. He stares down at the cobblestone street, giving it a laser-eyed glare that Graham would have been proud of under any other circumstances.

Lena steps forward cautiously, expression wary as she walks toward him with soundless footsteps. She reaches out. When he doesn't step away or object, she asks, "Can I hold your hand?"

Peter doesn't answer for a moment. Then he nods, and she slips her hand into his, only for him to turn and pull her into a hug instead. His face buries itself into her shoulder. Her fingers trace over the rough material of his stealth suit, rubbing comforting circles onto his back as she holds him.

How could he have been so carefree a few minutes ago? How could this have gone downhill so fast?

"We should get changed," Lena says quietly so she doesn't disturb the comfort of their embrace. "We can't be out here for long without masks, and Mr. Harrington will have a heart attack if we aren't back soon."

Peter nods, reluctantly pulling away and adjusting his grip on his backpack. They head into an alley to quickly change– for Lena, that means pressing the button to retract her nanotech and pulling her dress back over her slip. When they finish, Lena notices Peter staring stone-faced at something in his bag: Graham's mask and dress clothes. Then he quickly zips his backpack shut without bothering to put on his jacket.

They rush back to the hotel, sprinting through the dimly-lit streets of Prague. Lena notices that Peter pointedly avoids the shadows; instead, he runs down the center of each street, moving so quickly that Lena fights to keep up with him even with her long legs.

By the time they return, chaos is happening over on the students' floor. They take the marble stairs two at a time. The first person they run into is Ned, who is dressed in one of the hotel's supplied bathrobes and in the middle of walking across the floor.

"Guys!" he exclaims excitedly, rushing over to pull Peter into a hug before doing the same to Lena. "Oh my God! We almost died!"

"It's fine," Peter assures him. When Ned and Lena pull away, he takes his friend by the arm, a glimmer of excitement shining in his eyes despite the earlier argument. "Hey, guess what? We're done with the mission!"

Ned's smile fades. "Dude, the trip's over."

Lena's heart drops into her stomach. "What?"

"There's monsters coming out of the ground everywhere we go. Of course our parents would want us home."

Dammit. He's right. Lena has done a downright terrible job of keeping Ma and Pa in the loop about this whole thing— she's definitely going to have to call them tonight or risk being grounded for not checking in. Especially since the fire Elemental battle had likely made the news.

"No, don't put me on hold—" Mr. Harrington's voice floats into the hallway as he steps out of his room. His face brightens in relief when he sees them standing with Ned, stretching out an arm. "Peter, Lena, you're not dead!"

He yanks both of their heads down into his chest for an extremely uncomfortable hug. Lena grimaces when her skull bonks into Peter's, but he luckily releases them a moment later.

"Is Graham back, too?" he asks.

"Yeah," Lena replies, fixing her bangs. "He should be in his room."

"Oh my God," Mr. Harrington rambles, already starting to walk away with his phone still pressed to his ear. "Yes. Stay here, don't die, put some clothes on. We're booking flights!"

Mr. Dell approaches them next, dark skin shining with sweat and disposition frazzled. "Okay, for science, we're leaving because of witches. Welcome to the new dark ages!"

He gives them finger guns and then leaves, causing Lena to blink at his retreating figure when he almost crashes into a wall on his way to check on more students. "Havoc may have freaked him out a bit too much."

"Dude, what is going on?" Peter asks Ned.

"We're going home in the morning," the shorter boy replies.

Peter's eyes pop wide. "No, no, no! All the Elementals are gone."

Lena lightly elbows him, giving him a warning expression to lower his voice. They shouldn't be talking about this in the open for anyone to hear.

Before the conversation can even continue, however, Betty's voice calls, "Ned!"

"Coming, sweetie!" Ned replies with a wave. He half-runs across the floor to her room without heeding Mr. Harrington's advice to put on actual clothes.

The door to their right opens, revealing an irked Flash. "Hey, can you guys keep it down? I'm live streaming."

He turns his phone's camera around to face them. Lena flips it off and crosses the hall to her room, eager to take her dress off and change into more comfortable clothes.

When she reaches her door and pulls out her room key, she jumps as Cindy's voice exclaims, "Oh my God, you're back!"

She barely has time to react before a small body rams into her. Cindy's glossy hair slides against Lena's arm as she hugs her tightly, dressed in a matching set of silk pajamas with little hearts on them. Lena relaxes and hugs her back, glad to be in the arms of a familiar friend in the midst of all this confusion. It's people like Cindy who keep her tethered to her normal, teenage life.

"We thought you died, or, like, got kidnapped," Cindy says. "MJ joked about doing a seance to ask the spirits where you were, and Abe said they'll make an unsolved mysteries case about you guys, and— oh, wow, you smell like sweat. A lot of sweat. And a bit smokey. Were you close to that — that thing?"

She pulls away with a cringe on her face. Lena laughs at her usual rambling, unlocking her door with her key card. "Yeah. Peter and I got lost after I got sick, and all that destruction had us kinda trapped. Did you see Graham at all?"

"Yeah, the light's on in his room." Cindy points toward what Lena assumes is Graham's room. Light is indeed peeking out from under the door, making Lena's shoulders sag in relief. "I think I saw him go downstairs to buy a soda from the vending machine."

Sounds like Graham. His caffeine addiction is insatiable.

"Go shower," Cindy says, jokingly pushing Lena into her room. "And, while you're at it, change into some pajamas— maybe we can have a Hallmark movie night?"

Lena's heart twists at the mention of their old habit. When they were roommates for every hotel they stayed at during Decathlon tournaments, they never failed to watch a Hallmark movie or two and critique the plots. She desperately wants to fall back into that routine, but then she remembers what Graham had said about MJ having something that Peter broke.

"I'm so sorry, but I actually have to talk to MJ about something," Lena says, her heart heavy with guilt at Cindy's disappointed frown. "But maybe after?"

Her friend nods. "Okay! I'll be in my room watching a k-drama when you're ready."

All throughout Lena's shower, she can't help feeling terrible. Their mission is complete. She should feel elated that they don't have any more Elementals to fight and that Fury will finally leave them alone, but that doesn't mean that the situation doesn't still suck. Fury had expressed doubts about them being Avengers. Since he had created the Avengers Initiative back in 2012, that stings— he doesn't think they'd be cut out for the team. Since Lena has always yearned to be the best at everything — a need that's pretty much carved into her bones — it hurts more than the man may have intended it to.

Then there's the matter of Peter handing over EDITH. Maybe he was right to give up that responsibility. She'd loved Tony, but why had he given an impulsive sixteen-year-old an AI that's apparently capable of sending drones to kill people? But then again, she doesn't agree with Peter handing it over to Beck on such short notice. The extent of EDITH's abilities are unknown— what if Beck doesn't know what to do with them, either?

The truth is, if Graham and Peter had asked her to pick a side, she wouldn't be able to. Peter didn't ask for EDITH and the responsibility it slammed onto his shoulders, but on the other hand, he could have just left it dormant until he was older. What happened to all those safety protocols Tony had ingrained in Peter's first suit? Why was it so easy to call down a drone that nearly killed them?

Being on both sides is probably one of the hardest things about this. The logical part of her agrees with Graham, but the emotional part understands Peter. Especially after the loss of Tony.

When she finishes scrubbing all of the sweat, soot, and dirt off of her and gently patches some small tears in her skin, she changes into clean clothes. A pair of orange overalls and a soft white t-shirt make her feel like a new person. Though she wishes she could follow Cindy's advice and change into her nightclothes, she knows that her night is far from over.

As she blow-dries her hair, she checks her phone to see a text from Graham.

GRAHAM CRACKER: need to figure out how to get that thing back from mj, whatever it is

LENA LENA BO BENA: you got a plan?

GRAHAM CRACKER: idk, can you tell her you need to talk about girl stuff and then ask her if she saw anything tonight?

LENA LENA BO BENA: "girl stuff"? smooth. i'd probably ask her about a conspiracy theory instead.

GRAHAM CRACKER: or you could get peter to do the work. have him say he wants to buy you a gift but he's not sure what, and you and mj are kind of similar so maybe she'll have some thoughts?

LENA LENA BO BENA: it's worth a shot

Lena belatedly notices that Graham hadn't texted in the group chat they use for superhero purposes. She knows it had been on purpose, which makes her gut twist— he doesn't want to talk to Peter.

She forwards him the plan and gets a simple, Sounds good :) from Peter. Everything seems to run smoothly as Lena finishes drying and brushing her short hair. Then, her phone buzzes once again and she sighs at the message.

PETER PARKOUR: Quick question. How do I talk to MJ?

LEE: open your mouth and vibrate your vocal cords

PETER PARKOUR: :P

PETER PARKOUR: Very funny.

LEE: i thought so

PETER PARKOUR: Okay, I'm already changed so I guess I'll just knock on her door? I'll ask her to come on a walk too so you "won't hear." I'm assuming you'll be following us, though.

Once again, no mention of Graham.

LEE: probably. good luck <3

Lena jumps, nearly knocking the hairdryer off of the counter when a familiar figure appears in her room, popping from the shadows near her bed. Graham stands with his hands over his eyes and dressed in new clothes— a green and blue jacket over a black tee, cuffed baggy jeans, and orange Vans. She calms her racing heartbeat after swearing under her breath and catching herself on the counter.

"Is it safe to look?" Graham questions.

"Yes," Lena replies, tossing a towel so it hits him in the face just as he removes his hands from his eyes. He manages to catch it at the last second. "You're lucky nobody else was in here to see you do that. What if I was watching a movie with Cindy?"

"Then I would have immediately left and told Cindy she was seeing things, then suggest a doctor to help her keep her visions at bay."

Lena shoots him a glare and switches the topic. "Peter's going to talk to MJ."

Graham raises an eyebrow. "So why do you look like you're getting ready?"

"Because we're following him."

He heaves a long-suffering groan and plops down onto her mattress. "Why? That's why I suggested for him to do it. I don't wanna do stuff. He broke the thing, after all."

"Yeah, but it would be better for us to hear the conversation in person rather than him trying to tell us everything that happened afterward," she points out, shoving a pair of white sneakers onto her feet. "You know how bad he is at relaying information."

"Fair."

They shadow-travel out of Lena's room and into a secluded alleyway near the hotel. Graham obscures them in shadows, reining them in so they can blend in and are less likely to be seen. Peter and MJ pass by a moment later. Even from the quick glance Lena gets of him, she can tell his nerves are tightly-strung just by his posture. He fiddles his fingers in front of him, shoulders tense and steps hurried. It could be played off as his natural social awkwardness, but if MJ suspects something is deeper about this conversation, then they're screwed.

"Hold on," Graham says, his arm linked through Lena's. She barely has time to blink before they delve into the shadow realm again, with only the faintest sensation that they're zooming through space before they pop into another dark alley.

This time, Lena stumbles and clutches tighter onto her friend, who pays her loss of balance no mind. Peter and MJ pass by them again. Graham frowns, mumbling, "Where are you going, Peter?" before performing another jump.

Lena is nauseous. Another jump. She actually thinks she's going to be sick. By the fourth trip into the shadows, she emerges with her hands on her knees as she forces bile back into her stomach, throat burning from the acid. Her breaths come out in heavy pants. Graham shushes her. She shoots him an incredulous look, wondering how he'd like it if she threw up on his colorful shoes, only to realize that Peter and MJ have come to a stop on a bridge a fair distance from the alley.

Both of them pause their breathing. Peter's mouth is moving, but his voice is lost to the night, so Graham turns to look at Lena again.

"Please, no," she begs in a groan, stomach turning at the mere thought of shadow travel.

"It's just one more," he says. "You can do it."

And before she has time to protest, he grabs her sleeve and yanks them back into the void again.

She only stays standing because of his support. Lena almost takes a tumble right off the bridge they emerged on, but Graham grabs her around the middle and heaves her upright. Though there aren't any alcoves on the empty bridge for them to hide in, Graham has them nearly obscured in darkness. He manipulates the shadows cast by the streetlamp beside them so the edges of their bodies are blurred. Sweat is already breaking out on his hairline— he's not used to so many jumps with extra cargo.

"—and the picture we took was ruined, so I'm trying to figure out a way to make it up to her," Peter's voice comes in. Lena realizes that he's referring to the polaroid they'd taken outside of the Museo Correr that had gotten destroyed after the water Elemental's attack. It's a good cover since it's based in truth.

"Isn't Cindy really good friends with Lena?" MJ questions, pulling her denim jacket tighter over her ankle-length floral dress. "Couldn't you just ask her?"

Peter scratches the back of his neck. "Yeah, well, I could've, but I think you and Lena are... you know... more alike. She likes the unconventional stuff. And Cindy's great, but I'm looking for something creative."

"A necklace?" MJ suggests.

"She doesn't really wear jewelry."

"Art?"

"That's a good idea, but kinda expensive, and I'm really broke..."

"Art that you made?"

"Can't draw."

It goes on like this for several minutes— MJ suggesting things and Peter finding a way to shoot every single one of them down. Graham sighs impatiently, but Lena is almost grateful for the stalling. It gives her more time to recover and for her stomach to stop doing cartwheels.

Finally, Peter frustratedly turns toward her, flinging his hands out dramatically and going, "Look, MJ, I—"

"—am Spider-Man?"

The rest of Peter's sentence, a faint, "...need to ask you about something," dies as his voice dials down to a whisper. Then her words register in his brain, causing him to freeze. "What?"

"That's what you were gonna say," MJ says matter-of-factly. "That you're Spider-Man."

Graham tosses his head back, muttering under his breath, "Shit."

Lena would voice that same sentiment if she wasn't fighting nausea for a different reason. For someone as smart as Peter, he can be pretty dumb sometimes, so it's no surprise that someone as observant as MJ had figured it out, but the manner in which she'd said it had been so abrupt. They hadn't planned for this conversation. God, she should have just followed Graham's initial advice and talked to MJ about conspiracies.

And, since Peter is the absolute worst at covering up his tracks and playing it cool, he stammers, "N-No, I'm not Spider-Man."

MJ scoffs. "I mean, I've been watching you for, like, a while now. It's kind of obvious."

"I'm not Spider-Man," Peter insists. "What would make you think that I was Spider-Man?"

"Stop saying 'Spider-Man,'" Graham mutters through gritted teeth even though Peter can't hear him.

"Peter, Washington?" MJ points out, brows furrowed.

He blinks. "Yeah?"

"The fact that you disappear out of nowhere for no reason?"

"No — that was — I was sick, remember? I had the — the tummy..."

Lena slaps her palm onto her face and stifles a groan of dismay. This is painful to watch, but they can't intervene without risking their own secret identities— MJ hasn't suggested that she knows who Havoc and Specter are yet, though at this point, it may be obvious.

"You know Susan Yang thinks you're a male escort?" the tall girl asks.

"What?" Peter exclaims, his eyes almost popping out of his head. "No, of course I'm not a male escort!"

"Well, then you're Spider-Man."

"No, I'm not Spider-Man at all."

"Switch the topic, Peter," Graham urges under his breath. His face is twisted in a cringe. "God, this is so painful to watch."

"Well, what about tonight?" MJ asks. "You snuck out. You caught that thing— I saw you."

"Lena was sick!" he replies. "You saw her! We took her to the bathroom before she threw up on us. And you couldn't have seen me, because I'm not Spider-Man. And, also, on the news, it was the Night Monkey."

She raises a disbelieving brow. "The Night Monkey?"

"Yeah. That's what it said on the news— that Night Monkey, Witch Woman, and Night Terror helped Mysterio today. And the news... the news never lies."

Lena wishes she had the power to take away Peter's ability to speak.

"That's a lot of 'Night' names," MJ says.

"Yeah, well, they're European knock-offs, so they're probably less creative," Peter answers. Then, he finally switches the topic to what they actually sent him out here to ask. "And, also, while Lena and I were stuck near the flames, we saw you pick something up, so do you still have that?"

For a moment, MJ just stares at him. Then she sighs, removing her backpack from her shoulders. Lena watches as she unzips the largest pouch and produces a metal contraption that's too far away to discern the details of.

"Do Spider-Man and the Night Monkey use the same webs?" she asks. "And do Havoc and Witch Woman have the same color powers?"

Lena's heart drops into her gut. She's definitely screwed.

"I mean, maybe," Peter replies vaguely. "Maybe he's a Spider-Monkey and their powers just look the same. Who knows?"

At that moment, the device in MJ's hands begins to emit a burst of light so blinding that Lena and Graham have to shield their eyes. It clatters out of her hands and hits the stone. Both MJ and Peter backpedal away as an array of storm clouds abruptly appears in the pitch-black sky, swirling chaotically like an unkempt sea. Flashes of lightning illuminate the dark grey whorls. Lena gasps when a creature materializes out of the clouds and swipes a massive, clawed hand down at the two on the bridge— but it merely passes right through them as if they're not even there.

Or like it's not even there.

Lena's widened eyes flicker back toward the object. The light is still emitting from it, directed upward at the scene. It's almost like... a projector. A really, really advanced projector.

Her heart stops as realization overpowers the confusion coursing through her veins. The storm-clad figure above looks real enough to instill fear in her, but if it had passed through Peter and MJ like a hologram...

"I knew it," Graham mutters, expression surprisingly blank.

Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the projection vanishes.

"The hell was that?" Peter questions, still frozen in terror.

MJ, who had clutched onto her backpack for dear life, slowly loosens her posture. "I don't know."

The device briefly flashes again. Peter approaches it slowly with a hand out to stop MJ from moving, then picks it up and carefully turns it over in his hands.

"What is it, some kind of projector or something?" MJ questions, a piece of curly hair hanging in her face from where it had fallen out of its pin.

"Yeah," Peter confirms. "But it's, like, really advanced."

"It looked so real."

"Yeah, really real."

Peter turns around and searches the shadows. When his eyes latch onto Graham and Lena's forms — only visible because he had been looking for them – his terrified eyes meet theirs in a silent question: Did you guys see that? Lena nods.

Realization dawns on MJ, too. "Wait, does that mean..."

"The Elementals are fake?" Peter finishes, turning back around to face her before she starts to suspect something. "Well, that doesn't make any sense because we were there, right? There was fire, and destruction... Who would do something like that?"

The projector activates again. Peter jumps, aiming it in the opposite direction so Lena and Graham become trapped inside the hologram. The blue light is blinding, causing Lena to cover her eyes with an arm as Graham pulls more shadows around them to compensate for the lighting change.

The creature made of storm clouds is terrifying. It has no eyes, instead housing empty sockets in place of them that creates a skull-like appearance. It opens its gaping maw and roars, revealing nothing but darkness inside of it as it seems to lean directly toward Peter.

And then something else happens. Lena and Graham instinctively flinch when something green flashes straight through them. Graham grabs onto Lena and shadow travels them further away in an instant, placing them behind MJ so they have a better vantage point. Lena feels her gut churn with dread at what she sees. The projector not only presents a fifth elemental, but also Mysterio.

Her brows furrow in confusion at the familiar swish of the maroon cape and the brilliant gold-plated armor with turquoise decals. Mysterio's figure swoops in and shoots emerald-green lasers at the beast, causing it to flinch away for a moment.

Lena doesn't have to think too hard to realize what that means.

Peter whirls around to face MJ again, pale face stricken with terror. "I am Spider-Man," he gulps, "and I really messed up."

"Wait, you're being serious right now?" she asks. When Peter nods, she continues, "You're not joking with me? Like, you're one hundred percent serious? Because it's not funny."

"No, I'm not joking," Peter insists.

"Because I was — I was only, like, sixty-seven percent sure."

"MJ—"

"So—"

"MJ—"

"Why are you — why are you here?"

"MJ!"

"Why are you on the school trip?"

"MJ!" he exclaims, finally breaking through her uncharacteristic rambling. "Look, I know you have a lot of questions, but, look, we really have to get out of here, okay?"

"Okay," MJ says with a nod, calming herself down from her moment of hysteria. "Okay. I can't believe I figured it out!"

As they both break out into a sprint toward the hotel, Graham shadow travels Lena into her room without a single word.

____________

a/n:

graham, lena, peter, and mj:

i'm honestly really excited for the next chapter. it'll delve more into lena's feelings about this situation, since she's too shocked at the end of the chapter to truly reflect and decide how she feels.

i got so sad writing the fight between peter and graham because they truly do think of each other as brothers. this is their first big fight and it's definitely going to be a big part of the book for a few chapters, especially since they both stepped out of line.

also, i have a secret pinterest board dedicated to ideas for my OCs' outfits, so here are graham's and lena's from this chapter! if you're interested in these i can definitely try to include more in the future, though they'll be in their suits for most of the time from now on, so i'm not sure how many more opportunities i'll get.

+please vote and interact! the votes & reads dropped by 70 and 700 for the last chapter, which really made me struggle because i felt like people hated the update. a vote truly does wonders for my inspiration to write chapters and finish this fic sooner!

—kristyn