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chapter twenty-one
SUIT UP
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SHE SITS WITH GRAHAM for the rest of the night, until the darkness pouring in from his window elongates the shadows lurking on the walls and floor. For the first time, she realizes that they seem to stretch toward him. Beckoning him. But, as the edges of her lifelong friend begin to blur until she can't completely discern where his arm ends and the darkness begins, she begins to wonder if the shadows are actually a part of him.

Lena had left Pa a voicemail explaining her absence at home, telling him that Graham had an emergency that she'd left to tend to and that she wouldn't be back until later. She'd also quickly noted that she'd finished her homework, which isn't true. The lack of sleep doesn't bother her— look how much Graham had lost over the past few weeks. She'd happily salvage some of her comfort to support him.

She hopes, prays, that her parents won't ground her.

"I found out I could shadow-travel a month ago," Graham begins a bit quietly. They're the first words either of them has spoken in more than an hour— she hadn't wanted to force anything out of him, instead waiting until he was ready to speak. "The first time, I thought I was just so tired that I'd forgotten walking to the other side of my room. But then it happened again. And again. I realized it was occurring every time I was subconsciously standing in a shadow. It sucked me away, hurtling me through nothing but pitch-blackness until I popped out of the other side."

Graham's voice is somber, a bit fearful of his own abilities. Of himself. Lena knows the feeling. She cuddles closer to him, curling her smaller body around his because she doesn't have any comforting words to say. The two friends have been platonically cuddling since they were children— neither of them understands why it isn't more common in friendships. Sometimes, when words don't suffice, a hug is the best medicine.

When she does speak, her voice is soft. "What's it like? Shadow-traveling, I mean."

Graham ponders this for a moment before responding. "Terrifying. Or, at least, it was. One of the first times I did it, I was so delirious from lack of sleep that I forgot to force myself to come out. I was trapped in the darkness... and not like the darkness we're in now. It was a living thing. A place where light doesn't exist, where you can't see your hand in front of your face because you don't have a body. I felt like something was watching me. I was clawing, screaming with no voice, until I finally emerged where I'd entered. It took so much of my energy that I slept for seven hours afterward and woke up at four in the morning."

Lena trails her gaze around her friend's bedroom. A pale sliver of moonlight shining through the window is the only thing keeping them from being swallowed up by the shadows. She catches glimpses of nondescript things she hadn't noticed before— empty mugs that had probably been housing coffee, cans of energy drinks such as Monster or Redbull littering his desk and the edges of his wooden floor. A mostly empty bottle of sleep-aid syrup sits on his nightstand.

She shivers, trying to imagine what he's been going through. All of those times he hadn't seemed himself, when she'd noticed he was off and he'd said he was fine...

Lena isn't upset that he hadn't told her. Sure, she still believes wholeheartedly in the phrase Friends don't lie, but this feels like it belongs in a separate category: Friends don't lie but when they're facing something they don't understand and don't want to tell you until they kind of do understand, it's okay.

"Do you want to make the Spider-Man and Havoc duo a trio?" she questions hesitantly, unsure of how he will take the offer.

Graham lets out an amused huff from his nose. "Nah. Not right now, at least— I'm still trying to figure this out. I'm not going to tell Ned or Peter until I feel comfortable enough with my... whatever this is." Lena notices how he strays from calling them powers or abilities, but doesn't comment. "Plus, I have to come up with a kick-ass alias and costume. That takes time."

"I think... Specter would be cool," Lena says after a moment of thought. "It's another word for ghost or phantom. Maybe a black costume? You'd look like a living shadow."

"I think I'm good with just being the awesome best friend for now," Graham tells her. He smiles a bit, the bags under his eyes becoming more prominent with the action. "But I think Specter sounds pretty sweet."

-♕-

"Congratulations, Decathlon National Champions!" Mr. Harrington cheers as he sets the trophy on the table in the library. It's their first meeting since they'd won Nationals, and the entire club is futilely trying to ignore the gaping absence of Liz. "I'm gonna have to put this back in the trophy case soon, but just for motivation right now at this practice... I'm a little ahead of the game, but we will need a new team captain next year..."

Their moderator's brown eyes, framed by his wire-rimmed glasses, meet Lena's with a glimmer of a silent question. She subtly shakes her head to inform him that she's still not interested. A bit of disappointment fills his scruffy face before it flickers away.

"So, I am appointing Michelle."

The girl's head snaps up in surprise as everyone's gazes flicker to hers in unison. Lena grins, the first to start the round of applause that quickly follows the announcement. She's glad that Mr. Harrington had taken her suggestion into consideration. After speaking to Liz, she'd immediately gone to the teacher and had requested that Michelle be appointed next year's team captain. She deserved it; they'd won Nationals because of her quick thinking and even though she tries her best to fade into the background, her intelligence does not go unnoticed to Lena.

"Uh, thank you," Michelle says a bit awkwardly, still recovering from the surprise, "but my friends call me MJ."

"I thought you didn't have any friends," Ned replies from beside her. Lena quirks an eyebrow at him from across the table, giving him an incinerating look for saying such a thing in front of their whole club.

But Michelle — MJ — doesn't seem too bothered by it. She looks in her lap, a bit nervous, something that's strange to see. "I... didn't."

Her unspoken words still meet their mark. Until now.

Peter's phone buzzes from where he sits beside Lena. He quickly pulls it out and reads the message that shows up on his cracked screen, sucking in a breath of surprise at whatever it says.

"I, uh, I gotta go," he mumbles as he starts to slide out of his chair. Lena's head jerks to him, spirits beginning to deflate. Skipping out on them again? She'd thought this phase had passed since he'd gotten his suit taken away.

Nobody else at the table seems remotely surprised. Mr. Harrington tries again to hide his disappointment, flickering his gaze toward the trophy as if remembering Peter's absence on that day as well. Ned furrows his eyebrows. Charles pushes his blue glasses up further on his nose, attempting and failing to appear unbothered. Flash actually scoffs aloud and rolls his eyes obnoxiously.

"Hey, where are you going?" MJ suddenly interrogates, causing Peter to freeze in his tracks.

The boy, half bent over to retrieve his backpack from the floor, turns pink in the face as he stutters, "Uh — um — I—"

"What are you hiding, Peter?" She leans forward on her elbows, quirking her eyebrows at him. The entire table has fallen silent as Peter tries to scramble up an excuse. But before he can say anything, she relaxes her face and leans back in her chair, unfazed as usual. "I'm just kidding. I don't care. Bye. Alright, so, we should run some drills."

Without so much as a goodbye to Lena or Ned, or even an explanation as to where he's going, Peter exits the library. Lena watches him go with a bit of despondency in her gut. She'd thought things would get better. Peter can't start skipping out on life again, or she'll personally drag him by the ears to their decathlon and robotics meetings. She'll get Graham to do the same so he'll show up to band practice.

"Actually, Lena, could I speak to you for a second?" Mr. Harrington cuts in, effectively breaking Lena out of her thoughts and causing every member's head to snap toward her. Seriously, it's like they're in a cartoon with how synchronized their movements are. It's a little creepy.

Immediately, Lena's heart begins to pound as it usually does when someone asks to talk to her. "Yeah."

Why is that sentence always so haunting?

She leaves her bag on the floor as she stands to follow the moderator around the corner so they're out of earshot of the other members of the team. Lena crosses her arms over her chest, trying to act normal despite her frustration and nerves.

"I just wanted to make sure you're okay," he explains semi-awkwardly. Sentimentality isn't one of Harrington's strong suits. She finds it admirable that he's trying to check up on her, ever the strange uncle figure that he continues to be. "Uh, you're one of my best students, and I'd thought for sure you would have wanted to be team captain..." He pauses, voice going a bit quieter. "Is this because of Washington? I know that was pretty traumatizing. God, I should have rounded up a support group—"

"I'm fine, Mr. Harrington," she interrupts, which is a half-truth. "I just need some peace for senior year. I don't want to be overloaded. Plus, I know that I'll be doing stuff for robotics and scholarships and college and—" She cuts herself off before she can get lightheaded from lack of air. "I knew Michelle would rise up to the challenge. She'll be a great leader for this team."

"I don't doubt it," Mr. Harrington replies, "but you would have been, too."

Lena gives him a halfhearted smile, the scabbed-over cut on her face from Vulture stinging with the movement. "Thanks."

He doesn't say anything else, so Lena unfolds her arms and walks back to her club as casually as possible. The empty space beside her own is now glaringly obvious. She glances at it as she sits back down, wondering where the absolute hell Peter could be going that's so important.

As if on cue, she gets a text in her group chat with him, Ned, and Graham, recently titled The Gang.

SPIDER-BOY: GUYS

SPIDER-BOY: !!!!!!!

SPIDER-BOY: ASLDKSKDKSLQKDS

GRAHAM CRACKER: did somebody die

Ned's phone buzzes in time with her own. He sits across from Lena, meeting her gaze with an equally confused expression. The boy types with his phone hidden underneath the table.

GUY IN THE CHAIR: What's going on??

"Is that Peter you're talking to?" Flash questions, noticing the way they're both staring at their continually buzzing phones. "If so, tell him he's an ass for ditching us again."

"Shove it, Flash," Lena mumbles, though her insult has half of its usual bite.

SPIDER-BOY: HAPPY HOGAN AKA MR. STARK'S HEAD OF SECURITY WAS IN THE BATHROOM

LEE: what the fuck??? why

GRAHAM CRACKER: he doesn't even go here

Ned snorts.

"Guys, please focus," MJ pleads in an exasperated tone. "I've been team captain for, like, ten minutes. Don't make me hang you from the ceiling by your shoelaces."

Yep, she's definitely the perfect choice to lead them.

Lena turns her phone on Do Not Disturb, effectively silencing whatever Peter is screaming about so she can focus on their meeting.

-♕-

Maybe she shouldn't have ignored the messages and risked MJ hanging her from the ceiling by her shoelaces. She checks her phone on the subway home to see about a million text notifications, mostly Peter screaming via keysmashes and Graham asking where the hell she and Ned are.

SPIDER-BOY: HE WANTED IT TO BE A SECRET BUT THERE WAS THIS KID IN THERE TOO AND IT WAS REALLY AWKWARD BECAUSE HE HAD TO WASH HIS HANDS AND WE WERE JUST STANDING THERE

SPIDER-BOY: NOW WE'RE IN THE CAR I DON'T KNOW WHWRE WE'RE GOJNG

SPIDER-BOY: Guys what if he asks me to be an Avenger

SPIDER-BOY: WHAT IF I'M GOING TO THE AVENGERS COMPOUND

SPIDER-BOY: WHAT IF I MEET THOR

GRAHAM CRACKER: isn't he in asgard??

SPIDER-BOY: THAT'S NOT TGE POJNT GRAHAM

Lena scrolls for several minutes until she finally catches up. Peter has sent an extremely blurry picture of the Avengers Headquarters somewhere in upstate New York, then apologized for its low quality because his hands had been shaking so badly that he couldn't get a clear shot. She finds it slightly endearing.

SPIDER-BOY: I DON'T SEE ANY OTHER AVENGERS AROUND THIS IS NOT WHAT I EXPECTED

SPIDER-BOY: OH SHIT THERE'S MR. STARK I GOTTA GO

GRAHAM CRACKER: holy shit

GUY IN THE CHAIR: Go get em, bud!!!

Nobody speaks in the group chat for several hours. Lena continues on with her day, completing her homework and eating dinner with her parents as usual despite the fact that she's itching to know what is happening over at Avengers HQ.

"But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."

Later that evening, Lena slouches lazily in her chair with her feet propped up on her desk, Tolkien's Return of the King clenched in her hand. Her eyes hungrily devour every word like they have for the past two hours she's dedicated to reading the book. She'll admit that it's a tough novel for her hyperactive nerves to focus on, but the story is so thrilling that she's able to push through even the slowest parts. Éowyn is her hero.

One hand props her chin up from the armrest on her desk chair. Her cheek is smushed onto her fist and has been for long enough that there will most likely be a red mark when she pulls it away, but she doesn't care. She's so wrapped up in comfort and the battle that she doesn't notice Peter in the window until he bangs loudly on it. She falls out of her chair. The book goes flying, crashing onto her floor face-down as she tumbles down with it and lands on her side. Grumbling as she stands, she hears him laughing through her closed window.

Lena pushes it open and growls, "Watch it, Parker, or I'll push you out."

"I'm feeling very threatened right now," Peter responds sarcastically before climbing inside, because of course she doesn't care that much. She's more concerned about the wellbeing of her book.

"You should be," she counters as she snatches it from the floor and carefully sets it on her desk, placing her bookmark back inside to mark her page. "You made me lose my pa— wait." Her eyes scrutinize him from head to toe - twice for good measure - before squinting.

"I said no," Peter answers her silent question nonchalantly.

"YOU SAID NO?" Lena demands much more loudly than intended, then slaps her hand over her mouth and looks behind her to make sure the door is closed. Once she's certain her parents won't come inside, she hisses quietly, "I can't believe you said no to being an Avenger. Isn't that what you wanted this whole time?"

He shrugs, again, incredibly casually for someone who'd just turned down an offer to join an elite group of world-renowned superheroes. It still makes Lena's mind boggle. He'd actually been invited to join them. If he'd agreed, he'd go on missions with them, fight alongside people like Natasha Romanoff and freaking Thor.

"I'd have to move to the Headquarters," Peter explains more somberly. "Leave school, be at least an hour from everything I've ever known. And besides" - he pauses like he doesn't know where to go next - "I've got...friends."

He avoids her eyes for a few seconds before locking his gaze with hers. She must still look flabbergasted, because he breaks out into a smile and shakes his head. It makes her heart constrict a little. His hair is a bit windblown from the evening breeze and the climb up to her window, homemade webshooters attached to his wrists, and for one insane moment, she actually considers kissing him. Her fingers twitch from the desire to grab his face. But Liz has just left and Lena feels like it'd be weird to do such a thing so soon. After all, Peter had been crushing on the senior for so long.

"I'm gonna rejoin band and robotics, too," he continues when she doesn't say anything. Lena blinks, a bit embarrassed that she'd been staring.

"That's great." Her smile is genuine. "Are you sure you're not going to abandon us at the next decathlon meeting?"

Peter laughs but flushes at the neck, red creeping over his collar. Looks like quitting all of his extracurriculars is something he still feels ashamed about. "I'm sure."

They stand there, looking at each other as the cool evening breeze flutters into the room, and Lena feels it again. She could do it. Just take the extra step, bring him a little closer. But her own fear of him not feeling the same and Liz's image creeping in the back of her mind cause her to stay rooted in her spot. If Peter notices how stiff she is, he doesn't mention it.

"Oh!" he exclaims, snapping them both out of their stupors. He stumbles to her window and sticks his arm out. His fingers press the button to activate his webshooters, which sail outside and latch onto something. A quick tug of his arm brings a brown paper bag flying into her room. "I almost forgot."

"What is that?" Lena questions, eyebrows furrowing at the sight of the package. It looks like the size of a shopping bag she would get at the market down the street.

But he's already climbing out with a teasing smile on his face, and her heart aches a little to see him go. "Open it and find out."

He tosses the bag into her arms. She fumbles with it before securely hugging it to her chest. When she looks up again, her windowsill is empty with nothing but the skyline in view.

Lena holds the bag out at arm's length. She discovers writing on the front, done in a thick marker so it's easy to read. Butterflies of excitement burst into her stomach once her eyes scan over the words.

Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear really awesome suits instead.

-T.S.

P.S: You keep him in check. Keep doing that.

Tony Stark. Her hands shake from anticipation as she sets the package on her desk and gently removes the staples holding it closed. Once it's open, she inhales sharply before digging a hand inside and pulling its contents out.

Lena merely stares at it for a minute. It's a square, seemingly some type of sleek metal, a silver mask, and a blonde wig. She curiously clutches the square to her chest and gives a squeak of surprise when it latches onto her and starts to unfold. More pieces curl out from the center, eventually spreading fabric across her body that conforms perfectly to it.

It's a suit. A new suit. One much better-looking and seemingly more functional than her cheap one off the internet. It's a typical bodysuit-type of thing with gauntlets, but complete with a lightweight belt around the waist to hold objects and reflective designs on the forearms and calves. This one is a sleek silver instead of black. It reminds her a bit of Black Widow's costume, with the way it fits on her, but this one zips up to the start of her neck. The suit unfurls around her feet, forming boot-like shoes that are a part of the thing itself. The soles are rubber and lightweight.

Tony had really thought of everything. The only thing that could possibly fall off is the wig, but with the way it feels in her hands, she doubts it could slip off very easily. It's much less plastic-y to the touch.

"Holy shit," she finally whispers, mind whirling already. She'll never be able to pay him back for this. And why had he thought of her? She shouldn't be on Tony's radar. Sure, he told her the truth about her parents, but still. He hadn't known about her existence until fairly recently.

Lena glances over to her book still laying on her desk. Suddenly, it doesn't seem so important anymore as she looks back down at the costume that's specially designed for her.

She doesn't have school tomorrow. Maybe she wants to find a criminal, maybe she just wants to try out her gift from a billionaire, but does it really matter? Not when something this huge is happening. Not when the material is calling her name.

Something red and blue catches her eye from the apartment complex across from her room. Peter, clad in his own suit again, waves her outside. Lena lets a full-blown smile take over her face before she climbs out of the window.

Time to be a hero again.

END OF ACT ONE.

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i finished act one?? before 2019?? who am i

friendly reminder that act two, which will be comprised of infinity war and endgame, will take place in this same book. in between that will be a little surprise that i've literally had written since july 2017 when i wrote the first draft of this book. it'll be up soon, so i hope you'll enjoy it!!

did anyone see into the spider-verse?? my girl hailee ROCKED it as gwen stacy and you can bet that i'll be using voiceovers from the movie for the next trailer i make. that movie was 10/10

thank you all for sticking with me through spider-man: homecoming. please stay tuned to see lena be even more kickass in act two!

—kristyn