Alexandra

Sunday mornings in the Wallace household were Alexandra's favorites. Especially the last Sunday of each month, which, luckily, was what this Sunday happened to be. Alexandra always got up early on Sundays, it was the day that her father, Colin, didn't go into work at all. She and Leo always made a pancake breakfast for him (he tended to wake up late on that particular Sunday, seeing as though it was the one day a month he got to sleep in) and they all sat and ate together as a family.

That morning, when she woke up, Alexandra practically leapt out of bed and ran down the hallway into the kitchen. Leo was already awake and getting the supplies out and ready to make pancakes. "Good morning!" Alexandra greeted happily, planting a kiss on her father's cheek before grabbing a measuring cup from the cabinets.

Leo laughed a bit. "Good morning, sweetie," He said. "You're in a chipper mood this morning."

Alexandra looked at him and smiled widely. "It's the one day out of the month I get to see Dad for more than two minutes at a time, so yeah, I'm pretty chipper," She replied.

"Well, it's seven now, so he'll probably be up in about an hour," Leo said, checking his watch. "So why don't we get started on breakfast?"

"I bet I can make more pancakes faster than you!" Alexandra said as she began to fill the measuring cup up with water at the sink.

"Oh, you're on."

They, of course, made a complete mess of the kitchen. Leo and Alexandra weren't very good at cleaning as they went along, which is what Colin preferred that they did. But, he wasn't around enough of the time to enforce this little rule. So, Alexandra and Leo got away with making a mess of the kitchen and then having to clean it up all at once later.

It didn't really matter all that much to them, it just meant they got to see who could clean more dishes faster. Alexandra and Leo were always having little competitions like that. Colin had long since stopped trying to stop their fun.

"Ha! Ten pancakes!" Alexandra exclaimed triumphantly as she held up her plate of pancakes. "Beat that."

"Dang, that sure is a lot of pancakes," Leo admitted. "Buuuut, I made twelve, so." He shrugged. "I win."

"What?!" Alexandra exclaimed. "That's not true, the mixture package says ten pancakes per pack! Let me see your plate—" She reached out to grab the plate from her father's hands, but Leo pulled it away.

"I don't think that's necessary!" Leo replied hastily.

"Ooh, you are so lying," Alexandra said.

"I'm offended." Leo gasped. "Here I am, your poor father, slaving away over a hot kitchen stove to make you pancakes for breakfast and you accuse me of lying? For shame, young one." He ruffled her hair and Alexandra groaned.

"So, we are having pancakes."

The two of them turned around to see Colin standing at the entrance to the kitchen with a slight smirk on his face. He always seemed to enjoy the two of them bickering. Alexandra's face lit up and she set her plate of pancakes down and then rushed over to her dad, wrapping him in a hug. "Yep, pancakes!" She said. "As always."

So, the three of them sat down to a pancake breakfast. There was no way they were possibly going to be able to eat all of the pancakes, but it didn't matter. That just meant they would get to have breakfast for lunch... and for dinner... for the next two days.

"So, how are things at work, anyway?" Alexandra asked. "You must be dealing with a really big case."

Colin paused a moment before nodding. "Yeah, it's been a hard one," He replied. "Pretty sure we've almost got a handle on it, though." He was vague with the details, as he always was when it came to his work. 

"That's great, honey." Leo smiled. He leaned across the table and kissed his husband. Alexandra gagged and then gestured to her plate of pancakes.

"I'm trying to eat here!"

"Aww, poor Alex doesn't want to see her parents kiss?" Leo replied, kissing Colin again. Colin laughed a bit, shaking his head. "You used to think it was so cute when we kissed."

Alexandra looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "That's when I was five!" She replied indignantly.

"You two are ridiculous." Colin laughed.

"Yeah, but you love us." Leo shrugged.

"That's true." He kissed Leo again.

"Oh my God." Alexandra groaned, slouching back in her chair. Her parents only laughed and kissed again. She didn't blame them for being all over each other, no matter how grossed out she got by it, because this was the one day of the month they got to spend some quality time together.

"All right, all right, we're done." Colin told her, and Leo wined. "What do you two want to do today?" He asked, leaning back a bit in his chair. There was one thing that they always did whenever they got the chance to go together as a family, and that was go to Coney Island.

"We have a couple of ideas." Alexandra grinned.

🕷

They spent the entire day at the amusement park. Leo brought his camera along, he always insisted on taking about a million different pictures. Colin and Alexandra both hated having their pictures taken, but that never stopped Leo. He had this way of making Colin do whatever he wanted by just looking at him. Alexandra figured that was one of the perks of being married.

Alexandra won Colin a stuffed giraffe, that was another one of their many traditions. Whenever they went to Coney Island together, she won her father a prize from one of the booth games. And Colin kept every single one of them, too. Granted, they were kept in his closet, but he kept them all the same.

When they got back to their apartment around seven o'clock that evening, they had the leftover pancakes for dinner. "Today was awesome," Alexandra said. "I got more points than Pa at that balloon popping game."

"Uh... you most certainly did not," Leo replied, taking another bite of his pancakes.

"Let's see, who won the stuffed giraffe? Was that you?" Alexandra asked. "Oh, no, that was me." She grinned and took another bite of her own pancakes. Colin only laughed.

"Hey, you're supposed to be on my side!" Leo complained, looking over at his husband with a pout.

"I'm not taking sides."

"That means he's on my side," Alexandra translated.

"I never said that," Colin tried.

"Just for that, I'm stealing one of your pancakes." Leo reached across the table and took one of Colin's pancakes, and he objected, trying to snatch it back. While the two of them struggled over a pancake, Alexandra only watched with an amused look on her face. Leo turned to Alexandra and pointed his fork at her. "Checkers would feel betrayed, just like I do."

"Checkers likes that he has a new giraffe friend, thank you very much," Alexandra replied.

That's when her phone went off. It was strange, her friends knew that this was the one day that her father was off of work, so they tended to restrain from texting her unless it was an absolute emergency.

She pulled out her cell phone and checked her messages. They were from Ned.

Ned: Okay, I know your dad is at home right now so sorry for texting, but this is kinda an emergency?
7:30 PM

Alexandra furrowed her eyebrows and responded.

what's going on?
7:30 PM

Ned took a little while longer to respond, but that's because his message was long. Like, the length of a paragraph and then some long.

Ned: Okay, so you know how Peter's been obsessed with finding Doc Ock lately? Well, he reappeared this morning at the Capital One bank here in Queens. So, when Peter found out, he called me and told me to keep a direct line of communication with him while he fought Doc Ock cause, you know, it's dangerous? But like ten minutes ago, I lost communication with Peter and I haven't heard from him since. So I turned on the news, and it looks like Spider-Man is getting beat up pretty bad. I don't know if he's gonna be able to get that flash drive plugged into Doc Ock's arms.
7:38 PM

Ned: Maybe I should have tried to give him something easier to use. I could have programmed some sort of tracking device that didn't need to be plugged in. Maybe.
7:39 PM

Alexandra let the information she had just read sink in for a moment, and then she jumped up from the table, startling her parents (who were getting very cuddly) and rushing into the living room. She grabbed the remote and turned on the news. There was footage of the fight, and Ned was right, Spider-Man wasn't doing so good. It looked like Doc Ock was doing quite the number on him. She winced as Spider-Man was punched back and into a brick wall.

God, that had to have hurt.

"Peter, what the hell?" She muttered to herself. Watching her best friend get thrown around like a rag-doll wasn't exactly how she'd wanted to end her Sunday.

"Alex, is everything okay?" Leo and Colin had walked into the living room, startling Alexandra. "Whoa, what's going on?" He asked.

"Nothing!" Alexandra replied. She hated being snuck up on, it reminded her of... that night. She shook her head and turned her head back to the tv. "Spider-Man's just fighting some crazy guy with metal arms."

Both parents turned towards the tv and Leo visibly winced as Spider-Man was thrown against the concrete. "Dang, I wonder how the hell that guy is still alive after all the crap he's been through," He said.

"He has superpowers, right?" Colin asked. "Like a spider?"

"Hence the name." Leo nodded in response. "Kinda seems like he's getting in over his head here."

Alexandra couldn't help but agree with her father. Peter was getting beat to a pulp out there. She hated not being able to do anything for him, especially not while she was in her apartment. But she wouldn't be able to help Peter much if she were with him, anyway. It was more likely that she would just get in the way and screw things up.

She pulled her phone back out and fired off a quick response to Ned that would, hopefully, reassure him. 

you did the best you could with what you had, ned. pete's gonna be fine. we just have to trust him. 
7:54 PM

🕷

A little while later, Leo and Colin retired to their room. Alexandra went back to her own and sat nervously, staring at her phone for what felt like hours, waiting for a text from Peter saying that he was okay, or at least one from Ned letting her know what was going on. But she didn't get a text from either of them.

It was around ten o'clock, and Alexandra knew that she should probably try and get some sleep, but it was impossible. She wasn't going to be able to get to sleep without knowing if Peter was all right or not. She could feel her eyelids slipping shut, but she forced herself to stay awake.

Maybe I can rest my eyes for just a minute... Alexandra thought as her eyes slowly began to close. Of course, the moment her eyes closed, there was a knock at her window. Suddenly, Alexandra was back in that ally. Her eyes shot open and she fell off of her bed with a small yelp. She heard her window open and someone slip in.

"Alex!" Peter whisper-yelled. "Are you okay?"

She quickly composed herself and got up off of the floor. "What? I'm fine!" She replied quietly. "Sorry, you just—" That's when she saw Peter, still in his Spider-Man suit, his mask pulled off of his face. The suit was in tact, but there were clear red spots that were not the color of the fabric, but the color of blood. "—startled me." Her eyes widened. "Oh my God, Peter!" She exclaimed, rushing over to him.

Peter winced a bit as Alexandra reached out and touched one of Peter's wounds. She quickly yanked her hand back. "I'm fine!" He assured her. "Sort of—"

"I saw you on the news fighting Dr. Octavius," Alexandra said, she couldn't take her eyes off of the ever growing blood stain on his suit. "Oh my God, Peter. Take that thing off!" She rushed from her room and grabbed four towels and the emergency first aid kit from the kitchen before coming back into her room, closing the door softly, trying not to disturb her parents.

She laid two towels down on the floor and had Peter sit down on them, though he was protesting. He kept saying that he was fine, though it was quite clear that he wasn't. "I have an enhanced healing factor, these wounds'll be cleared up by morning!"

"They still need to be cleaned up!" She replied. "Take the suit off."

Peter groaned, but did as she told. He hit his chest and the suit suddenly became much baggier, which made it easier to take off. He only pulled it off down to his waist. His chest was littered with cuts and bruises. Alexandra cringed a bit. 

"Jesus Christ, Peter," She said, pulling an antibiotic cream from the first aid kit.

"It looks worse than is, trust me," He told her.

"Yeah, that's why you climbed through my window at ten o'clock at night instead of going back to your room and sleeping this off," She replied sarcastically.

Peter groaned, but didn't disagree. 

"This is going to sting," Alexandra warned him and then began to disinfect the wounds on her friend's chest. He winced a bit, but that was the extent of it. After she finished disinfecting the wounds, Alexandra began to bandage the wounds. 

"Thanks, Alex," Peter told her. "That actually sucked." He sighed, leaning back against the foot of her bed.

Alexandra sat down next to him and leaned back as well. "Yeah, it looked like it sucked," She replied. "You nearly gave me a heart attack, you know."

Peter chuckled dryly. "Sorry," He said. "I didn't mean to freak you out. I freaked Ned out, too. Trust me, the second I call him, he's going to be flipping out."

"You haven't called him yet?" Alexandra asked, surprised.

Peter shook his head. "No, I came straight here," He replied. "I dunno—home sounded more appealing than hearing Ned shout into my ear for half an hour."

Alexandra snorted and shook her head at him. "So, you got your ass handed to you—"

"Thanks for being so delicate with your words."

"—but did you at least get Ned's program into Dr. Octavius's system?" She ignored him.

"I find it hilarious that you refuse to call him Doc Ock." Peter laughed.

"That's because Doc Ock is a stupid name."

"You liked it when we came up with it."

Alexandra sighed. It was kind of a cool nickname. "I just feel ridiculous calling a renowned nuclear physicist something as silly as 'Doc Ock,'" She replied.

"I think it's funny." Peter shrugged.

"Well of course you think it's funny," Alexandra said. "But seriously, did you manage to get Ned's program into his systems?"

Peter looked over at her and grinned. "I sure did."