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chapter eighteen
UNMASKED
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HOMECOMING IS TONIGHT, AND Lena is at her apartment, helping her parents cook dinner instead of attending the dance. They're using Pa's iPad to Facetime with Graham's mother so they can see him off, much to Graham's dismay. He's wearing a gray suit, which compliments his date's navy blue dress wonderfully. His younger brothers keep teasing him about how pretty Kaitlyn is and making kissy noises. The strained smile on his face promises they're going to regret it later, his eyes flashing.

"Graham, you look so handsome!" Ma gushes as she stirs a pot of sweet spaghetti sauce. Her hair is tied back in a bun at the back of her head, apron neatly worn over her clothes so she doesn't splatter anything onto them.

"Doesn't he?" Mrs. Seager gushes, the camera shaking as Max runs into her. "Max, Owen, stop running around! You're going to knock into something!"

"Mo — om," Graham whines and motions toward his date. Kaitlyn is an only child, unaccustomed to the horrors that siblings involve. Her parents merely laugh at the twin boys who keep darting around the small living room.

"What?" his mother asks innocently, unaware that scolding her sons is embarrassing her eldest. "Come on, I want to get another picture."

"Smile for the camera!" Lena teases as she dumps noodles into a boiling pot of water. He glares in the direction of his mom's phone.

As chaos ensues in the Seager household once more and the parents fight the kids to take photos, the Rivera family enjoys the peace in their own home. A disk of Lena's parents' favorite Filipino music plays quietly in the background amongst the sounds of their cooking. While Ma and Lena are at the stove, Pa is working on chopping the tomatoes and onions.

"Why aren't you going to homecoming, Lena?" Ma questions, trying to sound casual, but her daughter can tell by the tone of her voice that she had been thinking about it for a while.

She shrugs in an attempt to sound nonchalant. "Busy."

"You could have asked Peter!" Ma exclaims, causing Lena's heart to sink even further. "Did he like the babingka?"

Lena glances to the left at her father, who has tensed up at the mention of her bringing a boy to a dance like she isn't sixteen years old already. Her stomach feels sour as she responds, "Yeah, and I did ask him, actually." Her mother drops the spoon she'd been using to stir the sauce, but Lena quickly adds, "He already has a date."

"Who?" her mother nearly demands.

"Elizabeth Allan. Liz. You've seen her before. She's the president of our decathlon team. Saved by Spider-Man, you know..."

"That must have been very traumatic for her," Pa notes stiffly.

"Yeah," Lena agrees, her mind flashing back to the complete terror she'd felt in that elevator, "but at least he saved her."

Before anyone can say anything else, Mrs. Seager regards them again. "Okay, well, we're heading to take pictures outside against the brick wall. I'll send you some of the photos! Bye-bye, now."

"Bye-bye," Ma replies automatically, and Lena wonders if it's just a mom thing to say that before they hang up, or if their parents are just weird.

The music continues playing. Lena focuses on it in an attempt to divert her attention to something other than her shaking hands, which grip the spaghetti spoon much tighter than necessary. Her powers have become both more dormant and more sporadic ever since Tony had given her that file. Sometimes she'll have moments of complete serenity, something she has scarcely known, and others she'll be shaking five times worse than she normally does.

It's not just her body that's taken a toll, though. Sometimes she's awoken by terrible nightmares she can't remember. She's haunted by fabricated "memories" of the accident, dreaming again and again that she's watching the building collapse onto her parents, her force field threatening to break at any second. She'll have episodes where she's sitting in class and sometimes she can't breathe unless she practices that exercise that Tony taught her.

Most of the teenage population is sleep-deprived, but she can guess she's one of the few that don't get the adequate amount because she keeps dreaming about her evil parents.

If Tony marched in at that moment and asked her where the file was, she'd be able to tell him its exact location and find it without a problem. She'd tried to hide it from herself without success. It's been stuffed in a dresser drawer, shoved in an old file cabinet, and thrown on the shelf above her closet. Presently, it lays under her bed where her parents can't find it. It always seems to burn a hole in her mattress when she tries to sleep at night.

After dinner and doing the dishes, Lena flops onto her bed with a sigh. She stares at the old glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling. The silence pierces her ears. She can't do this. She can't stay holed up in this apartment all night— surely she'll go insane.

She pulls off her clothes and rummages around for her suit. Yanking it on with minor difficulty, she dresses as quickly as possible, taking extra care in securing her wig to her head. She stares with dismay at the Bluetooth earpiece she'd bought to hook up to Peter's suit. She'd purchased it in hopes that it would be returned to him soon, but as the days stretch on, she isn't so sure she's going to need it anymore. Tony seems to be keeping his word.

Lena decides to practice her flying abilities and uses her blasts of energy to carry her to school. It's still not a perfect method of transportation by any means, but it gets the job done, and soon she's hiding on the roof of a building across the street from Midtown School of Science and Technology, watching the student body pile into the gymnasium through the back entrance. Cars pull in and out of the parking lot as parents drop their children off. She even spots the occasional limousine or party bus, which she scoffs at.

The night is relatively cold. Lena is grateful that her suit covers her from head to toe, but it isn't thick by any means, and goosebumps quickly pepper her skin. Her breath comes out in puffs of white clouds that are an even greater contrast against the black night sky.

Lena squints at the clock on the wall of the school. It's 7:15, meaning the dance is only fifteen minutes in.

What is she doing here? Why is she hanging around her high school while a dance is going on like Sandy in Grease, dateless and sad because her love interest doesn't like her back? She's better than this.

Her hand grasps the edge of the building, ready to leap off of it, when she hears a familiar voice scream and her blood goes cold.

"Peter," she mumbles, her voice changer making it sound foreign to her ears. Without a second's hesitation, she vaults herself into the air and speeds in the direction of his voice. The wind is icy cold on her face. She's not sure if she's shaking because of her abilities, the temperature, adrenaline, fear, or all of the above.

Lena lands in a tree, one of the many clustered beside the parking lot on the side of the school where all of the buses park. She crouches in the safety of its branches so she can observe what's going on.

Peter is sprawled on the ground wearing the Spider-Man costume he'd had before his upgrade, making him much brighter and less cool-looking than before. Her eyes widen at the sight of Hoodie Guy stalking toward him with that shock thing attached to his arm. His burly chest is pushed out in confidence. The electricity crackling from it is so loud that she can hear it from where she hides, making her nerves become even more alert at the acute danger he's in.

Lena surveys the bigger picture. Seven mustard-yellow school buses— one parked vertically to the right of Peter's fallen form, the others in horizontal rows on his opposite side. The school's side entrance is behind Hoodie Guy. Peter is boxed in, his webshooters fallen to his left and out of reach. The only way to get out is around.

"He gave you a choice," Hoodie Guy snarls in a threatening tone, chin high as he saunters toward Peter. The glove continues to crackle at his side. "You chose wrong." He pauses, a slightly amused smile appearing on his dark-skinned face. "What's with the crappy costume?"

He gives the shock glove another surge of electricity, the light blue sparks sizzling in the cool air. Peter glances to his left long enough for Lena to catch his drift. He scrambles to his feet, reaching blindly for his webshooters, but to Lena's horror, Hoodie Guy slams his glove into the tail end of the nearest bus. It spirals out of control, nailing an unsuspecting Peter in the chest just as he reaches down to grab his tools.

Lena drops to the ground, throwing her arms out as she does so. She manages to get a shield around Peter before he can fly ten feet backward and slam into the next parked bus. Instead, she lowers him to the ground so his momentum causes him to roll.

"You," Hoodie Guy sneers once he catches sight of her.

"Me," Lena mimics in an equally deep voice as she stalks forward onto the pavement of the parking lot. "Didn't learn your lesson last time, huh? Couldn't handle getting stuck to something?"

"Yes!" Peter cheers excitedly as he pushes himself to his feet and jabs a finger at their opponent. "Take that, asshole!"

Hoodie Guy's lips turn into a frown as he prepares to raise his fist again. Lena shoots a ball of energy at him, but he avoids it by ducking into a somersault and using the momentum to vault toward them faster. She throws up a force field instead. When the shock from his weapon connects with it, it ripples with shudders. Her arms strain to keep it up. Hoodie Guy uses all of his might to push into her, and since his strength doubles hers, she feels her powers caving in.

Just as she can't take it anymore, Peter steps in front of her and takes the brunt of his punch. She's knocked down as a result and lands painfully onto the asphalt. The shock to her back takes the air from her lungs, making her feebly, stupidly, choke for air. She doesn't see where Peter lands, but she does hear a terribly loud crash and winces.

The taller man lifts her up by the collar of her suit and holds her above the ground like a trophy. His hand closes around her throat, blocking off any hope of oxygen. Lena claws at his fingers in a vain attempt to free herself; his grip doesn't waiver. Her shoes barely scrape the ground.

"You may be labeled as superheroes," Hoodie Guy sneers in a mocking tone, "but you're still just kids."

Then, her survival instincts kick in and she remembers what Graham had taught her. Just as he raises his fist to shock her, the glove charging up with currents of electricity vibrant enough to give her a second-degree burn, she kicks him in the nuts. Hoodie Guy drops her like a rag doll. Lena, face overheated and probably red from lack of air, quickly forces herself to stumble away despite how intensely her head is spinning. She isn't sure where to go— she just knows that she needs to be away from that man.

Focus, she tells herself, reminding her brain that it needs to pay attention to things other than the burning sensation in her chest, the pain in her throat, and her disorientation. For all she knows, he could be right—

"Look out!" Peter screams, throwing himself at Lena and twisting mid-air so she lands on top of him instead of on the ground again. She lets out a grunt as she hits his chest. His arms are securely wrapped around her, saving her from a blow from Hoodie Guy's electric glove.

"Thanks," she mumbles hoarsely.

"Don't mention it," Peter replies.

He releases her so she can pop to her feet, just about to send another blast at their opponent, when the unexpected happens: a web connects to the glove. Lena glances at the empty-handed Peter behind her. Both of them and Hoodie Guy turn in sync to see a bewildered Ned Leeds standing diagonally behind them, one of Peter's fallen webshooters in his hand.

"Nice shot!" Peter exclaims with a smile clear in his voice.

Before Hoodie Guy can react, he darts forward and yanks on the web with enough force to twist the glove to the ground. Lena seizes the opportunity to shoot her hands out and send a gust of energy his way. The man soars backward into a bus, landing there with a sickening thud that makes the windows rattle. Peter makes sure he isn't going anywhere by securing him in place with a few webs.

"Yes!" Peter cheers again, absentmindedly picking Lena up by the waist and spinning her around. She's too stunned by this action to share his enthusiasm. However, she isn't given much time to recover. As soon as her feet are back on the ground, he tugs her around toward Ned... and Graham.

"When did you get here? Where's Kaitlyn?" Lena asks in a rush of panicked words, her voice still recovering from Hoodie Guy's grip.

"I've always been here. Who do you think grabbed the webshooters?" Graham appears confused at her question. "Kaitlyn's inside. I'm taking a really long pee."

"No time for chit-chat!" Peter shouts, his voice now filled with more panic than happiness. "Guys, the guy with the wings is Liz's dad!"

"What?" all three of them chime in at once. Lena can't believe her ears. Shock inflates her chest like a balloon, causing her jaw to drop. Her mind whirls to connect any dots she can muster and fails. It's always been Liz's mom who comes to all of their school functions. Come to think of it, she's never seen Liz with her dad.

Now she knows why.

"I know!" Peter bounces on the balls of his feet. "I gotta tell Mr. Stark. Ned, call Happy Hogan— he's Mr. Stark's head of security. And, uh, get a computer and track my phone for me!"

After that confusing mess of information, he grabs Lena's arm and yanks her along once more. Her head twists to see the two boys growing smaller as her feet automatically carry her away from them. Graham, his mouth open in shock, also has to get dragged away by Ned.

"What's going on?" Lena questions as Peter swings himself up onto a lamp post. She jumps up, using her powers to fly up into the air beside him. The icy wind blows her hair back from her face and threatens to numb her cheeks.

"No time to explain right now!" he yells. "We gotta catch him before he leaves town!"

Before she can do anything, Peter releases his web and drops downward too quickly for her to catch. Flash screams and skids his silver convertible to a halt as he lands on its hood in a crouched position.

"Flash," Peter says in a rumbling voice, looking at him through the makeshift whites in his goggles. "I need your car and your phone."

"Uh, sir, tech—technically, this is my dad's car, sir, so I can't—" Flash stammers, staring wide-eyed at the figure before him.

Just to put the icing on the cake, Lena drops down in front of the car and instantly cuts his rambling off. She narrows her eyes behind her mask as she stalks toward the car quickly. "Get out."

Flash's voice comes out as a mere squeak. "What?"

"Get out!" Lena's voice rises as she reaches into the door for the unlock button. Once she presses it, she throws the door open and motions for him to leave. "Do you want to help save the day, Flash Thompson? Or do you want this city to burn to ashes because you didn't help us?"

"Sorry, ma'am," he mumbles as he scrambles out of the car. His date does as well, allowing Peter to flip into the driver's seat and for Lena to climb over the back into the passenger one.

"The city isn't going to burn," Peter comments in a half-confused tone as he shifts gears.

"I know," Lena replies with a shit-eating grin on her face. "I just wanted to see him piss himself a bit."

She barely has her seatbelt clicked before he takes off, swerving the expensive car violently and crashing it into a few parked bikes. The vehicle jerks enough for the seat belt to dig into her neck.

"Have you ever driven before?" Lena demands as she grips onto the handle of the door to prevent herself from being tossed around in the seat.

"Not really," Peter replies sheepishly as he veers onto the main road. "Just with May in parking lots!"

They're going to die.

"Dial Ned's number!" Peter throws Flash's phone in her lap. She fumbles with it as he recites it to her, sometimes having to delete numbers because Peter's erratic driving causes her to tense and press random ones. She puts it on speaker.

"Hello?" Ned's voice comes from the other end.

"Ned!" Peter screams over the howling wind. Lena's grateful that she put extra bobby pins into her hair. "Ned, can you hear me?"

"Go for Ned," he confirms.

"And Graham!" Graham replies helpfully in the background. "We're wearing headsets. This is just like Kim Possible."

"Guys, I need you to track my phone for me," Peter reminds them impatiently.

"Yeah, but, where is it?" Ned asks in a confused tone.

"I left it in the backseat of Mr. Toomes' car," Peter answers. "It'll send you the location of wherever he ends up. Hurry!"

"Okay!" Ned hollers exasperatedly. "He just moved. He just passed the GameStop on Jackson Avenue."

"Hey, where are the headlights on this thing?" Peter inquires as if he's just now realizing how dark the road is ahead of them. "I'm in Flash's car."

"To the left of the steering wheel," Lena informs him, wondering why she let him drive. At least she's driven a car more than once and knows its controls relatively well. "Turn the knob clockwi— AAAH!"

She's cut off by her own scream as Peter almost slams directly into a bus. He swerves around it, narrowly missing the taillights. Lena's heart races a million miles an hour until she's sure it'll combust.

"Get out of the way, get out of the way!" Peter shouts to the nearby cars as if they can actually hear him. "Move! Move! Move!" They cross an intersection at a red light, causing people to blare their horns at them. "Hey, have you gotten through to Happy yet?"

"We're working on it," Graham answers nervously. "Are you guys gonna be okay?"

"I hope so!" Lena shouts, her voice full of fear as Peter turns the wheel sporadically, fighting to stay in the middle of the lane.

"What were you saying about the headlights, Lena?" Peter asks. "Left of the steering wheel..."

"Just reach to your left and hope for the best!"

He fumbles around for a bit until the road suddenly becomes more illuminated in front of them. "Got it!"

The city is mere streaks of color to her eyes. Peter's driving is so shaky and full of sharp turns and swerves that she feels like she's on one of those bull riding simulators that are designed to throw you off. Her stomach begins to rise.

"GameStop," Peter remarks as they fly past the store. His enhanced senses must enable him to see better, because she can't distinguish anything. "Where's my phone now?"

"Um, he stopped at an old industrial park in Brooklyn," Graham responds in a perplexed tone. "By the way, I told Kaitlyn I had bronchitis and had to leave."

"You don't even have a cough!" Lena says exasperatedly.

"I panicked and that was the first thing that came to my head!"

"Brooklyn?" Peter repeats as if the second half of the conversation hadn't happened. Lena screams again when she sees a pair of headlights coming toward them— he'd turned into the wrong lane. She squeezes her eyes shut as he steers them back on course. "That doesn't make any sense. I thought he said he was going out of town!"

"Weird," Ned agrees. "Oh, we reached Mr. Happy — don't think he likes you, by the way — but it sounded like he was catching a flight. He said something about taking off in nine minutes."

"What?" Peter demands in a panicked tone.

"He was surrounded by a bunch of boxes."

"Boxes?" Realization seems to dawn on Peter as the car lurches forward from the gas pedal being pushed so violently. "It's move-in day! It's move-in day! He's gonna rob the plane— we gotta stop him!"

He follows Ned's directions until they get to an old highway that seems deserted. The only other car on the road is a dilapidated 90's automobile parked on the shoulder, seeming as if it hasn't been touched since it was a new model.

"Slow down," Ned orders. "It's coming up on your right."

Lena grabs onto the handle again as he turns violently to the right. Just as the car threatens to flip over, she uses a burst of energy to push it back on its wheels. The car lands with a thud and lurches to a stop.

Her blood is roaring in her veins as she snaps back in her seat from the force of the seat belt. "Holy shit."

"Are you okay?" Ned asks.

"Yeah," Peter replies, unbuckling himself. "Just keep trying to get through to Happy."

He presses end on the call. Lena attempts to tame the strands of her wig that had gotten tangled during the high-speed race to get to this building, her fingers getting snagged on the plastic strands.

"He might be expecting me, but he won't be expecting you," Peter tells her, causing her attention to snap to him. "I want you to wait wherever I come in and only enter if things go bad. And I mean bad. You could be the element of surprise like Ned and Graham were earlier."

Lena shakes her head. "Peter—"

"I'm not trying to keep you out of things," he promises in a somber voice that sounds like he's on the verge of desperation. "But you're my partner in stopping crime, and I'm asking you to help me kick his ass by being sneaky and everything, alright?"

After a moment of hesitation, Lena nods. She unbuckles her seatbelt and climbs out of the car. The building appears abandoned, but judging by the single car parked outside, she can tell that it's not, despite its outward appearance. It looks like it was once a factory. The ceiling is lined with pipes that run into lower sections of the building, the gates lined with barbed wire. The only sources of light are the outdoor lights spaced evenly on the wall facing them.

Peter swings himself onto the roof. Lena flies up using her powers, trying to ignore how her stomach is currently twisting itself into painful knots. This isn't some random vigilante gone wrong anymore— this is her friend's dad. How could someone like Vulture be a parent to the smartest, nicest girl Lena has ever met?

After Peter opens a hatch at the top of the building, he hesitates and stands back up. Lena's staring at an unknown point in the distance. Her eyes are unfocused, voice soft as she whispers, "Do you think Liz knows?"

Even with his mask on, she can detect the flash of hurt that goes through him in just the way that his posture slumps a fraction. He glances away from her as if in shame.

"I don't think so," he replies quietly. Then, as if becoming more determined, straightens his spine and asserts, "There's no way she does."

Lena nods and bites her lip. "That's what I was thinking, too. Um... Good luck in there."

"Thanks." Peter attaches a web to the roof and salutes her to ease the tension. Then, he sinks into the darkness and is gone.

Lena stands there, alone, in the cold of the night. She understands where Peter's coming from. Vulture doesn't know that she knows who he is. She does have the element of surprise. But being the one left behind also kind of sucks, even if he didn't mean it that way.

She turns toward the city. Its lights are prominent in the pitch-black sky, the blue tint of a ferris wheel catching her eye the most. Its spokes are lit up insanely brightly. Then, her eyes shift to the Avengers Tower, half-lit in blue. The trademark "A" at the top taunts her from across the river. She sighs, wondering why Happy wouldn't listen to their pleas for help. What had Peter done to make him dislike him so much?

Lena shivers and curls her slightly numb fingers into fists. She sits down on the edge of the open hatch impatiently. A nearly overwhelming desire to disobey Peter's wishes consumes her, but she resolves to keep her promise to stay until necessary.

There's an earth-shuddering crash from inside and the building itself shakes, causing her to snap into focus. The structure rumbles beneath her. A loud crash echoes from somewhere inside, causing her heart to resume its erratic beating.

It sounds like it's necessary.

Lena drops down the same way Peter did, except she uses the same tactic she does when dropping down to her fire escape. She looks around at the nearly-empty warehouse. There isn't anything in the room except computer screens depicting the plane's size and model as well as a seemingly live camera feed of Avengers Tower. It chills her blood.

The lighting is almost nonexistent. She has to feel her way to a cement staircase, hands trailing the dust-coated metal railing beside it. Her senses dialing to high alert, she sprints in the direction of Peter's voice as she hears him shout in surprise. Lena ducks behind a wall that obscures her from view. The Vulture wings swoop past her hiding spot, causing her to automatically duck, but they fly by without a problem. It takes her a moment to realize they're unmanned— Mr. Toomes isn't inside them. The razor-edged wings slice into a concrete support beam as easily as a knife through soft butter, causing the building to tremor.

Lena moves her face closer to the edge of the wall until she has the man himself clear in her sights. He's standing near the far wall, casually leaning against a single wooden table. A wool coat makes him look like an old-fashioned pilot, the lack of lighting making the lines on his pale face even more prominent. He looks sinister— the perfect picture of a man who is sending his killer creation after a fifteen-year-old boy that his daughter took to homecoming.

It fills her with enough rage to block Liz out of her mind as she sends a blast of energy his way, the blow landing squarely in his chest and causing him to flip backward over the table.

Peter, in the center of the room, spins around to see her sprinting toward him. The Vulture wings falter in mid-air as their controller fights to regain his composure.

Lena grips onto Peter's arm and hauls him to his feet. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine!" he shouts in reply, though he's covered in dust and small chunks of debris from the shattering support beams.

"We meet again, Havoc," Vulture grumbles in a reluctant greeting. He's standing back on his feet, lip curling as he walks toward the front of his desk. "How old are you— fourteen?"

Lena scowls but doesn't take the bait. Instead, she lets more energy flow into her cupped hands, but she's interrupted by the wings slicing into another one of the beams. The ceiling above them cracks, spider-web-like formations spreading across the smooth surface.

"That thing hasn't even touched us, yet!" Peter jeers haughtily.

"True," Vulture agrees as the wings speed behind him in a wide circle around the room. His mouth twists into a cruel smile. "But then again, I wasn't really trying."

Lena whirls around just in time to see the razors slice through the last of the support beams. She doesn't even have time to scream as the ceiling seems to hover in mid-air for a bone-chilling second, then collapses on her and Peter all at once.

________

the end doesn't really make sense but i didn't feel like typing vulture's whole speech out lmao sorry michael keaton

things are really heating up!! (literally because of the fire in the second half of the fight) i still have several more things planned for after the big two-chapter end fight that i'm excited for, so i hope you stick around!

quick question, just because i'm curious: what has been your favorite part of this book so far? is there a moment that really stuck out to you?

—kristyn