( CHAPTER SIXTEEN ! )

(  A KICKASS LADY AND A NOT SO KICKASS COLIN )

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Colin was sitting at a large dinner table in a room where fancy looking stuff was all over. It was all Flash's fault (hence his fault since he had to agree to Flash's request).

At least Gwen was there, that helped, a little.

Plus, Gwen's dad was kind of cool, a little bit tough and maybe a little scary but it was in a way that made Colin want to respect the man. He was clearly a man with princibles and he clearly loved Gwen very dearly- and especially in contrast to Flash's and Colin's dad, he seemed fucking awesome.

Flash's father seemed like a geniunely upbeat guy but his cheeriness was a bit over the top and in your face kind of way. There was something about the man that did not sit well with Colin, the way he bragged about his work and how well he was doing made Colin wanted to stab himself with a fork in the eye. (Surely, even that would've been more pleasant.)

Nobody wants to hear about your amazing security system and how well they are selling.

Gwen was looking slightly uncomfortable as well but she was handling it well, staying close to her dad and smiling politely when a question was directed at her. Where Colin was practically sulking and when he spoke it sounded forced (because it was), his father did not react to it though so he was fine.

The trio's fathers were friends from the days where they used to work togerher in the police station and Flash's father had retired to sell security systems around the time Colin had moved out. Appearantly, it paid off way better than being a policeman judging by their status right now.

Gwen's father was a hardworking man and had became to captain recently while Colin's dad worked under him at the moment. He had a sense that Gwen's father was not having much fun with this crowd as he used to.

Neither was Colin but he had to suck it up, he owed this to Flash after acting like a jerk to him at his birthday.

It was only after dinner that the kids were excused from the table to go into Flash's room, Cory was also tagging along.
The group stepped inside Flash's room which was pretty big and filled with random stuff. Ot was cleaned out yet it felt messy as if Flash had been collecting random stuff for years and maybe he was.

Colin still felt a little on edge after the dinner, his dad and Flash's dad seemed to get on prety well which was u settling on its own. He sat down on the couch and poured himself a glass of water and tried not to think too much into the fact that Flash had a couch in his room, a big one that is.

Not so surprisingly, Cory decided to break the silence. "Do you know Peter?"

Colin almost chocked on his water, Flash grimiced and Gwen smiled.

"Yeah, we're all in the same year," Gwen replied. "Why do you ask?"

"He is like one of Colin's best friends but I haven't seen him in awhile. I'm curious," Cory said innocently but Colin knew it. This little devil, ugh.

Cory had been bugging him to have a night out with Peter. He was hell bemt on getting to know Peter since apparentely he was all Colin talked about lately. And as a counter argument, Colin had said that Cory had met Peter multiple times but the younger Archer claimed that they were too brief to know him. This was a payback or a way to make sure the thing Cory wanted would happen.

The kid was nearly twelve years old and he was able to kind of blackmail his older brother, perfect.

"He is a nice person-"

"He is very annoying-"

Gwen and Flash started talking at the same time, guess which one said which.

"Plus, he is not Colin's best friend. I'm. And Sam, maybe," Flash stated and Gwen glared at him, making him squirm a little. "And Gwen, of course."

Gwen smiled and Colin did not want to talk about Peter. Okay, he did want to talk about Peter but not to his kid brother and Flash (which was almost the same thing). But seriously, he needed to talk to Gwen about his crush very soon or he was going to explode.

So, Colin took the bait and ruffled Cory's hair and said, "We will hang out together, I promise. Okay?"

"Okay," Cory replied, looking pleased with himself with a smile on.

.

After the revelation about, you know, his feelings and all, Colin realized another very curicial fact about his life. Peter was running around in the extremly dangerous streets of their neighbourhood, practically jumping into risky situation willingly.

Of course he knew it was dangerous, he watched the news and knew of a lot of fallen heroes. Yet, he was pratically drunk on knowing to truth and getting closer to Peter in the process that he had not freaked out about the danger his friend was in. Thus, a second list about Peter Parker came to life when he it dawned on him that Peter needed every help he could get.

HOW TO HELP PETER PARKER BECAUSE ITS A MIRACLE HE IS STILL ALIVE WTF

Number one was about the fact that Colin had to be able to defend himself, at least a little, if he wanted to be helpful for Spider-Man. Right after the night at Flash's house he signed up for boxing in the nearest gym to his house, he could use some muscles (since his muscles and abs were nonexistent. He was fifteen years old and he did not have the privilege of having a super power).

It all started to go downhill when Peter caugh slightly more advanced criminals than his usual gigs, stole the bad guys bag and had a huge cut from his shoulder to his chest.

"Hospital, now!" Colin started shouting the moment Peter showed up his house, coming from his bedroom window, bleeding all over his floor.

Peter sat down at his desk and wiggled out of his costume, breathing heavily. "No. I'll heal quicker than a normal person. Just help me clean up? Please?"

Colin didn't have to hear it twice as he ran to the bathroom to get the first aid kid, telling Cory to make sure to let him know when their father came to the house.

His hands were shaking as he went through the items to find the ones he needed, deciding on an antiseptic and a wipe to clean out the wound. He took a deep breath while his head was spinning. Event when he realized that the cut was not that deep, he couldn't stop panicking. He cleaned the wound as softly as he could, slumping on the nearest chair once he was done.

"Are you okay?"

"I should be the one to ask you that," Colin replied, his face was as white as a sheet.

"I'm good now, it doesn't hurt much," it was a clear lie as he sat on Colin's desk with a torn up suit and ruffled hair and a bloody chest. Still, he didn't look like he was going to faint so that was something. "These guys were professionals. I couldn't catch them but I showed before they could steal everything at the pharmacy, so that's something."

"A pharmacy? I mean, shouldn't the professional crimianls be robbing banks or something? First a bakery and now a pharmacy, its weird."

"My thoughts exactly," Peter said, pouting a little at his thoughtful state of mind. "Also, I accidently stole the bad guys bag," he added, pointing at the pitch black duffle bag on the ground. "I was trying to yank him and instead yanked his bag away."

Inside, there was two strange looking guns, they were large and they had green and purple marks on the sides and a simple looking flash drive with a an X on it.

"This is getting weirder," Colin stated, Peter nodding in response.

That night, neither of them felt like investigating further since it had been a tiring night already. Peter left with Colin's clothes on and Colin was left with his thoughts.

He stayed up all night trying to patch Peter's suit up and ending up almost redoing the whole thing while his mind kept on going back to a bloody looking Peter. Boxing was not going to cut it, maybe he should take his dad's offer at teaching him how to use a gun properly.

Oh well.

.

"Even Vine is dead! Nothing is forever."

"... what kind of an argument is that?"

"The point is, I want to tag along- as a sidekick, I promise. To take you away from a scene with my bike if you're injured or something."

Colin had been freaking out about the fact that Vine was closing and he had been binge watching old favorites. Maybe he did not have the most compelling argument, what about it?

Peter was not having it though but Colin was never to be the one to back down from an argument either. Two could play this game, he guessed.

At that end, after promising a countless times that he would not be interfering with fighting with the bad guys, Peter had to say yes. (Duh, Colin was not giving him a choice anyway.) Thus Colin was following Peter as he swung by the buildings with his web thing and he rode his bike and stayed relatively close.

Okay, in reality, Colin was aware that he could not keep this up everynight. He had to stay with Cory some time to time, he had to study because unlike Peter, he was not a genius and to get okay grades he had to bust his ass off. Yet, being able to do this where he somewhat kept an eye on Peter gave him a much needed sense of being in control.

Plus, he had a crush, okay? And even if he liked the idea of it or not, being around Peter was exciting and he liked how he was with Peter.

At least, most of the time he did.

Colin became carefree with Peter, more spontenous that he would normally allow himself to be, and perhaps, a little happier. Yet again, there was this problem of also becoming too over protective and Peter Parker did not help his case since he was usually surrounded with danger.

They were heading towards a possible robbery case (again?) and then, Colin was waiting in a narrow alley, standing next to his bike. If Peter was not back in twenty minutes, Colin would put an escape plan into action, that was the deal.

Waiting was a torture though. Surely, taking a walk around would not hurt?

He pulled his sweater's hood up and placed his hands in his pocket (not suspicious at all, huh?) and started going near to the possible crime scene. It was quiet, which was odd if there was a robbery going on. Maybe he could go a little closer. It wouldn't hurt anybody, right?

As he got closer to the his destination, finally he started hearing something- a loud clashing sound from something hitting metal.

"... lady, we can talk this out, just-" It was Peter with his manly voice he tried to pull of when he was Spider-Man. If it was not a life thearetening situation, Colin would've laughed at how he silly he sounded.

The woman who apparently knew karate or something, was not finding it funny though. Colin doubted that she was even aware of Peter's ramblings since she seemed very focused on her task, which was kicking Spider-Man's ass.

Okay, Colin, think. He was not armed, he did not know fucking karate or anything close (his boxing skills was still a work in progress) and he was mostly a defenceless fifteen years old kid. Perfect. If he had been thinking logically, he would see that the best solution was to just do nothing.

He was not thinking logically though. He was scared and he was worried- and it only got worse since she seemed to be really good at what she was doing, her mask was covering most of her face and her suit looked profecional, it was pitch black with purple and green lines one the left arm, with an x mark on her back. Purple and green lines, just like the gun.

Oh, shit. This might be one of the criminals that had been terrorizing Queens and Peter with his onesie and goggles was not an actual match.

"You have something that is mine, give it back to me and I will let you go," the woman said and she didn't even sound tired, mostly annoyed.

Shit, shit, shit.

Colin hid behind the dumspter, trying to labor his breathing. "Lady, I told you. I can't do that but if we talk this through-"

He had to do something so he looked around, a half eaten burger was on the ground, next to something rotten and an old looking teddy bear next to the garbage. Colin tried really hard to not scream with frustration as he settled on an empty bottle, that'll do.

He left his hiding place and it was good timing on her behalf since the woman had Peter pressed against a wall, holding him by the neck. Her short dark hair was covering her face and she looked terrifying to Colin. "I don't want to hurt you wannabe hero. Tell me-"

"Stop! " Colin yelled and simultaneously threw the bottle at the woman. It landed on the ground next to her (excellent throwing skills, Colin) shattering into small pieces. At least it made her look at his direction and that gave Peter the time to punch her across the face.

The woman yelped and stepped back, but she was pulling herself back together quickly.

"You are a kid?" She muttered while Peter stared at her face, unmasked face since her mask had fallen off her face while Peter hit him.

"Spider-Man! Go," Colin yelled and Peter used his webs to practically fly away, (this was cool) the woman was too startled to stop him.

The next thing Colin knew, Peter was wrapping his arms around him and his feet were not touching the ground.

Maybe, he should've just stayed at home.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

i'm so self concious about action scenes, did you enjoy it? i hope you did.

colin is dealing with his crush and spider-man stuff at the same time, let's see how it all goes! also, we will see more of this mysterious lady and the dinner at flash's house had a purpose, i swear.

let me know what you think! also, if y'all curious about the sleepever that i mentioned next chapter, i might write it as a deleted scene later on :)

btw, brandon flynn does not have that many gif online so please roll with it when the gif at the start does not fit the chapter perfectly lol