┌────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────┐
chapter three
TWO CAN KEEP A SECRET
└────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────┘

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

LENA DOESN'T KNOW WHAT time it is when she's finally able to crawl into bed. Her back aches from how long she's sat in her desk chair, furiously typing an outline for her AP Gov class that's due tomorrow. Instead of using her own ink, she'd decided to email it to herself to print it at school the next morning. Plus, she's too tired to bother with the walk across her apartment while her parents are sleeping. The floorboards would creak and she doesn't want to risk waking them. And, to her exhausted mind, it's a hell of a long walk.

Her entire body seems to sigh in relief as she flops down onto the sky-blue covers tucked into her mattress, the usually uncomfortable springs feeling like a cloud. A sigh blows out from her mouth. She lays there for a second, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on her ceiling before remembering she has to change her alarm to ten minutes earlier so she can head to the library and print her outline.

But as soon as she props herself up on her elbow to do so, a car alarm blares through the night, and she heaves a tremendous groan from deep in her throat as it causes her to jump. God dammit.

"What the hell is going on out there," Lena hisses to herself, not entirely like a question. She throws her blankets off of her before beginning to peel off her jeans — she hadn't bothered to change into pajamas before attempting to sleep — and yanking on the black jumpsuit that is her sad excuse for a costume. She clips a chunky belt onto her waist and easily pins up her hair to slide the platinum blonde wig on. After so much practice, gearing up has become second nature and hardly takes any extra time at all.

Graham has this down to a science, ironically. He'd thought of everything. Obscuring her true hair color, the mask, even the voice changer he'd bought from a practical joke shop down the block. That way, her true identity is as hidden as can be while still being comfortable.

Okay, so the jumpsuit sucks, but whatever.

It's both a blessing and a curse that her room is so small. Luckily, she's able to grab everything she needs in a short amount of time. Unluckily, Lena seems to bump into every single piece of furniture she owns. Her mattress is shoved in the corner of her room and sits on a plain metal frame that she's frequently banged her ankles on over the years. Across from it, against the far wall, is her white desk, where mounds of books continuously lay. A large poster of Wonder Woman — Lena's idol — hangs above it and is easily the most noticeable thing in her room. She also has an absurd amount of vinyl records stowed in milk crates beside her desk. The player itself sits on another crate beside them. Finally, her most prized possession, her overstuffed bookshelf, is beside her bed. It's filled with classics she's collected over the years — everything from Little Women to her current obsession, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.

Her bedroom is a mess, but she loves it. It's a perfect description of her personality and interests.

Lena finishes pinning the wig securely to her head before pushing her window open. The crisp, autumnal night air greets her and gently blows the plastic strands behind her back. Carefully, she heaves her legs over the edge and inhales sharply before pushing herself off of the windowsill.

Her eyes snap shut as she summons all the concentration she can muster. Luckily, she's gotten fairly good at this part— it's the easiest. A small shield of energy envelops her like a bubble, breaking her fall down to the fire escape's landing two floors below hers. It sets her barely half a centimeter's length above the metal structure as to not rattle it. And then, once she's secure, the shield breaks and she's sprinting down the remaining steps as quickly and quietly as she can.

The streets of Queens are far more dangerous at night. Even with the flickering streetlights casting dim glows over the deserted streets, it's difficult to see. There are often people who lurk in the shadows. Lena recognizes the familiar sensation of her nerves snapping to high alert.

The car's alarm is continuously blaring into the otherwise quiet night. She begins sprinting in that direction, using her powers as a means to push her faster than the average person. She's not so much running as being shoved from behind. It's as if a blast of wind is carrying her, so it takes less effort on her body to move.

Every time Lena is out in the field, as she calls it, she tries to use as much of her abilities as she can. It makes the constant rattling of her nerves less noticeable for the rest of the night—or even into the next day if she's lucky enough. Expelling the energy from her body is a catharsis that nothing can compare to. Being in a constantly wound-up state means exploding is like a breath of fresh air, sunshine after a hurricane.

She reaches the car in a matter of thirty seconds. Its headlights flash in time with the extremely loud blaring emitting from it. There doesn't appear to be any sort of break-in; the vehicle is in perfect condition, with no sign of anything that could have caused the alarm to go off. With a sigh, she stretches her hand out to it, about to release enough power to turn it off, when she hears a thud from behind and automatically tenses up. Someone had snuck up behind her.

"Ma'am, is this your car?"

Her eyebrows crease in confusion. That voice— she'd recognize it anywhere. Why is Peter Parker out here in the dead of night?

Quickly, she turns around, about to explain, when the words get caught in her throat. Her mouth snaps shut as shock inflates her like a balloon. All sensible retorts flee her brain, instead replaced with two words on constant repeat: Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit holy—

Because the figure standing before her is not Peter Parker. It's Spider-Man.

Her brain, through the shock, immediately begins rationalizing the situation. Maybe she'd misheard. Maybe their voices are incredibly similar and her mind had connected the sound to one she's familiar with, like Taylor Swift's lyric that didn't turn out to actually be "Starbucks lovers."

"Hey, wait!" Spider-Man points at her excitedly. He bounces on the balls of his feet like a kid on Christmas morning. Fanboying— over her. "You're Havoc, aren't you?"

But no, she hadn't misheard. That's definitely the ecstatic voice of Peter Parker.

Lena stays absolutely silent as her brain trips over itself to connects the dots. The Stark Internship isn't real— it'd just been a cover. And all those times he'd been staring at the clock or watching Spider-Man videos in class... He quit robotics for this. Band. Nationals. 

And she's figured out his identity. All because, even if he has a fancy new suit, he still hadn't thought to disguise his voice.

"I'm Spider-Man," Peter introduces when she still hasn't spoken. She's thrown off at how confident he seems in contrast to the quiet boy she's used to. He doesn't stammer over his words, instead speaking loudly and clearly. It's like she's not talking to the awkward boy she's come to know for the past two years. Gone is the blushing, shy outcast who can hardly look her in the eye and form a coherent sentence at the same time. And now she's the speechless one. "I think it's about time we've met."

Lena opens her mouth to respond, but the stupid car alarm is preventing her from coming up with a sensible thing to say. She frustratedly thrusts a hand out toward it with more force than necessary in her bewilderment. A swirl of blue mist curls from her palm, condensing into a tiny coil that snakes through the cracked-open window and turns off the source of the blaring. Silence falls upon them as her power fades; it makes her ears ring.

"That was sick!" he exclaims joyfully. Lena is going to get dizzy from watching him bounce up and down like that.

"What are you doing here?" is what comes out, though much more harshly than she intended it to. She blames the surprise still taking over her brain. However, if he detects the brashness in her voice, he doesn't outwardly react to it.

"Same as you," Spider-Man — Peter — replies, waving a hand casually toward the automobile. "Only... I was the cause of that. I accidentally landed on it." As if noticing her unease for the first time, he's quick to play the peacemaker and his voice suddenly turns apprehensive. For a split second, a glimpse of the real Peter shines through his persona. "Hey, no hard feelings, right? We're both trying to achieve the same goal, here."

Lena eyes him through her mask. She tries to envision the small, nearly-invisible boy she's acquainted with underneath the intricate costume. Which, up close, is incredibly astounding. It's much better than his old one, which had been even sadder than hers. The texturized, ruby red material stands out even in the darkness. It's accompanied by navy blue around the edges of his abdomen and thighs, with a webbed pattern crisscrossing over his top half. The areas around his eyes are pure white and seem to be moving, squinting as he analyzes her.

"Of course not," Lena assures him more calmly. She really doesn't know what to say to him. Hi, I go to your school? Hi, we're kinda friends? Hi, what the hell? Hi, who are you and what have you done with the socially awkward Peter Parker?

"Well, you seem to have fixed the problem," Peter says awkwardly, noticing that she doesn't seem to want to speak to him and that there isn't much left to say. "So I'll be on my way." She slightly jumps as he suddenly shoots a web that attaches to a street lamp across the street. The white area around his right eye seems to close in a wink as he turns his head toward her one last time. "See ya around, Havoc."

"See ya," she manages to choke out before he swings away. Her eyes follow his figure as he hauls himself over building after building. Once he's nothing but a speck in the darkness, she mutters under her breath, "What the f–"

She should have just stayed home.

-♕-

Lena doesn't tell Peter that she knows his deepest, darkest secret. She doesn't even want to tell Graham, which is unusual, because they rarely have things they don't share with each other. But she understands that it's not her secret to tell. It wouldn't be fair if she spouted it off to other people. After all, if their roles had been reversed, Lena would want Peter to keep her alias under wraps.

She can only hope that the circles under her eyes don't give her away. Although Peter's ability to inductively reason is nearly perfect, over half of the student body is sleep deprived. She'd even broken out her under-eye concealer in an attempt to lessen the appearance of the awful bags. The adrenaline rush she'd gotten mixed with the shock had left her unable to sleep until somewhere around four in the morning. Because she had to wake up a bit earlier, she'd barely gotten an hour and a half of sleep.

Lena sluggishly walks down the crowded hallway with her hands shoved in the pockets of her denim jacket and headphones still in her ears. Usually, she removes them once she gets to school, but she feels like if she doesn't continuously blast Queen into her eardrums at an obnoxiously loud volume, she'll pass out from exhaustion.

Graham falls into step beside her, right on time, as always. She can only tell because of the familiar scent of his cologne that wafts off of him. He knows what the headphones mean and stays quiet— he'd learned his lesson from experience, when he'd once tried to talk to her and was met with the full force of her Hulk-like rage.

Lena doesn't take her earbuds out until they make their routine stop at her locker. The bold, bright colors of her decorations shock her tired eyes and give her brain a temporary wakeup call. She hadn't paused her music, so the faint sound of "Killer Queen" can be heard amid the chatter of the student body as her headphones hang over her shoulders.

"Homework?" Graham asks hesitantly. He seems like he's bracing himself for an explosion, face slightly pinched and eyebrows drawn together.

"No," Lena sighs. "Adrenaline."

Her friend nods in understanding and gives her a pat on the head, for which she glares at him and puts her headphones back in. He gives a wave that she half-heartedly returns before he heads toward his own locker.

Lena sluggishly drags her Physics book out, along with her notebook, and slams her locker shut. She closes her eyes and face-plants into the metal door. Her breath forms condensation on the cold material around her mouth and nose. She must be getting stares, but she doesn't have the energy — ha — to care.

As she walks into her first class of the day, she catches a familiar name while she passes by a group of sophomores she doesn't know.

"Did you hear? Spider-Man stopped a huge bank robbery last night!" one of them gushes — a scrawny boy with blond hair, whose blue eyes are widened with excitement. "Mr. Delmar's shop on the corner exploded! Spider-Man rescued him, of course, and look." He furiously swipes through his phone before presenting it to his friends, who lean forward in their chairs in anticipation. "My cousin took this last night."

"Is that—" a redheaded girl gasps, and the blond boy is so excited that he cuts her off.

"Yep." He grins. "Havoc. And Spider-Man. In the same place. Outside of her apartment! They were stopping this car alarm from going off."

"Was she at the bank, too?" a different, black-haired boy asks.

Blondie shrugs. "Dunno. Cameras only caught him."

Lena tries not to be too obvious as she approaches the group. The redhead notices her instantly and points, making the two boys turn around and acknowledge her.

"Did you say you had a picture of Havoc and Spider-Man?" she asks with as much false enthusiasm as she can muster. The blond boy appears smug now that he's caught the attention of an upperclassman. He nods. "Can I see?"

He turns his phone so the screen is facing her. Sure enough, there's a picture of her and Peter in their costumes, barely visible because the only lighting is from a nearby street lamp, but their signature outfits are a dead giveaway. It looks like it was taken right after she'd shut the car off. They're facing one another. The picture itself is unremarkable action-wise — it would have been much cooler if they'd gotten it while she was using her powers — but it'll still go viral.

"Oh, shit," she comments, remembering she's supposed to be impressed. "Your cousin's gonna be internet famous for getting that picture."

Blondie seems even more satisfied with that realization. He turns back to his friends, chattering about how cool it was and how awesome it would be to have powers and did they think, if Havoc came to his cousin's apartment again, that she could get her number for him?

Lena rolls her eyes at the last remark— she absolutely would not want to date that kid. She retreats to her seat in the back just as the bell rings and Peter himself sprints inside.

"Nearly late again, Mr. Parker," Mrs. Warren chastises the brunet boy, giving him a severe expression with her head tilted downward. "Don't make it a habit."

"Y-Yeah," he stammers as he shrugs off his backpack and sets it beside his seat. "Of course not, Mrs. Warren."

Lena spends the majority of her class time staring at Peter, trying to imagine the suit on him. You're Spider-Man, her brain keeps repeating. You're the guy who swings around New York, who half the city is in love with, who saves pedestrians from getting hit by cars and stops bank robbers. The same guy who winked at me. Who seemed so comfortable in his own skin.

But it's so much harder to remember he's the same guy of whom she met at the car last night, especially now that he's sunken back into his normal, quiet demeanor. He scribbles intently in his notebook, cheek leaning on his arm and face inches from the desk. He hasn't raised his hand or stood out in any way. He's allowing himself to fade into the background like he always does.

It's like Spider-Man is his cooler, more confident alter ego— a not-evil version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

At lunch, Graham startles Lena out of her wits by all but throwing himself into the chair beside her and stating, "Peter Parker knows Spider-Man and he's coming to Liz Allan's party tonight."

Cindy chokes on her carton of milk. "What?"

"Yes." Graham casts a not-so-subtle look at Lena, of which Cindy is, luckily, too busy recovering to notice. "So, now we're going."

"I was already going no matter what, but now that Spider-Man is going to be there..." Cindy's eyes widen and her mouth forms a perfect 'O' shape. "Oh my God, I left my skirt at my dad's house!"

With that, Cindy abruptly stands and sprints away, presumably to call her father and inform him of her clothing catastrophe.

The other members of their table — some of Graham's acquaintances from band along with Abe and Sally from the Decathlon team — are eagerly chatting about Spider-Man. It's likely that, now with his RSVP, the guests will double in amount.

"You have to go," Graham tells Lena with the same serious tone that he had when he told her his goldfish died in fourth grade. That is to say— he's completely serious.

"Remember my first party freshman year?" she asks, casually putting a grape in her mouth and speaking around it. "I got accidentally doused in beer and had to shower at your house so my parents wouldn't kill me. I had to tell them I was accidentally sprayed with a garden hose. We were in the city and they didn't have a garden hose."

"There won't be alcohol," he says with a wince at that memory. It wasn't a pleasant time for him, either. "Liz's parents would kill her. Besides, if you don't want to go, you could always just ask someone else to show up instead.

Lena threateningly jabs a grape in his direction before popping it in her mouth. "No."

His face crumples in disappointment. "Aw, come on. Havoc and Spider-Man? People would go crazy."

"Fine," she huffs, mostly to please him than anything. She hates that kicked puppy thing he does because it works every time. "I'll go dressed up, but only to scout the area. If anyone sees me, cool. Maybe I'll throw them a peace sign or something. But I won't go in like that. I'll just be regular, old Lena."

She contemplates how the hell Peter convinced Graham's gym class that he knows Spider-Man, and if he'll really show up to be a party trick. Maybe it's another one of his vain attempts at getting Liz's attention.

Lena wonders just how long it'll take for him to start doing more things for himself.

___

@ peter.... pls

i was going to wait to publish this, but then i got too impatient lmao what's new

what do you guys think of spideyvoc as a ship name?? their first names don't go together at all and their surnames are a maybe (parkos??) so tell me which one you prefer!

https://youtu.be/c0Aa6Ngo5b8

p.s. check out this hella cute edit i made for peter and lena (instagram edit-style because that's how i roll and i acknowledge that it looks dumb on youtube)

-kristyn