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chapter four
AN UNEXPECTED SWIM
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THE TEENAGERS JUST KEEP on arriving. Every time Lena thinks there can't possibly be more people, another car pulls up and six kids pile out of it. It's a good thing Liz's house is the biggest she's ever seen. If it was any smaller, it would burst at the seams.

Lena is perched on top of Liz's neighbor's house from across the street. She hasn't been to the suburbs since her childhood. Graham had nearly gotten them hopelessly lost on the way here, even with the help of the Maps app on his phone, and they're lucky they even made it at all. Out of the two of them, only he knows how to drive. They're just grateful that his parents had allowed him to take their car to the party.

Half-hidden behind the chimney and shrouded in darkness, Lena allows herself to marvel at the sheer size and architectural design of Liz's house. It's a very modern, two-story abode with the front nearly covered in floor-to-ceiling windows on each floor. People are gathered outside on the immaculate front lawn as well as swarming within the house. Even from where she is, she can see several grand chandeliers hanging from the ceilings as well as multicolored lights changing with the beat of the music she can hear pulsing from within.

Lena's phone chimes with a message. She digs it out of her bra to see a text from Graham.

GRAHAM CRACKER: spider-man better get here soon. flash decided to play DJ and i think i'm gonna faint from these lights. they're overkill

Just then, Lena hears a deep, electronic voice bellowing, "D-D-D-DJ FLASH." She rolls her eyes and types a reply, grateful that her gloves are fingerless.

LENA BENA: hang in there, bud

She looks up to see a small car pulling up to the house. Ned Leeds climbs out of the backseat (is he wearing a fedora?) followed loosely by Peter, who is busy talking to whoever had driven them there. Confused, Lena tilts her head to the side. Peter. Not Spider-Man.

Graham has texted her twice more within the time she's spent observing.

GRAHAM CRACKER: graham? graham? oh my fuckin' god he fuckin' dead

GRAHAM CRACKER: that's what you'll be saying when you find me on the floor of liz's kitchen even when i WARNED you

Like a good friend, Lena ignores him. Instead, her eyes follow Peter and Ned as they walk up the long sidewalk leading to Liz's front door. She can't figure out why Ned decided to wear that atrocious hat or where the hell Peter's costume is.

She leans against the chimney with a sigh and moves a plastic strand of her wig out of her mouth. This is pointless. Nothing is going to happen here. This is the rich part of the suburbs, where their biggest crime is someone forgetting the potato salad they were supposed to bring to the cul-de-sac barbecue. It's no place for a super-powered vigilante.

She glances at the house that Peter has disappeared into. Or two.

Lena pulls out her phone, about to text Graham that she's going to change and meet him inside, when a sudden blast from afar makes her jump. She turns toward the source and places a hand on the chimney so she doesn't topple off of the roof. At first, she doesn't see anything except the pitch-black sky. Then, a bright-blue explosion from a few miles away catches her eye. It's followed by a joyous laugh as the color dissolves into nothing but air.

She ends up texting Graham something else.

LENA BENA: meet me across the street and take my phone. something's going on

Lena never brings her cell phone with her on missions in fear it'll fall out and break, or get lost, or be used to figure out her identity. She trusts Graham to keep it safe while she checks out the site of that weird explosion.

She carefully and nimbly scales the roof, using her powers to create a buffer between herself and the shingles to create as little noise as possible. By the time she plops down into the grass at the side of the house, she can see her friend's silhouette jogging across the street. His usual attire of flannels or hoodies has been replaced with a blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of black jeans. Although she's disappointed that she won't be able to witness him actually dressing up for something longer than two minutes, she can feel that explosion calling her name.

Graham barely stops in front of her before she shoves her cell into his hands.

"What about Spider-Man?" he questions in a disappointed tone. He, as it turns out, still hasn't given up on them becoming a dream team.

Maybe it won't be impossible, she thinks wryly. Aloud, Lena replies, "Someone's gotta keep criminals in check while he's here doing flips and meeting fans. If it gets too late, go home. If it's one a.m and I'm not back yet, call my parents and tell them I'm spending the night."

"Lena," Graham begins with an edge of nerves in his voice. His furrowed eyebrows cause rivets in his dark skin, mouth pulled in a frown that she can detect only by use of the streetlights behind him. "I don't like the sound of this."

"It's just in case," she assures him. Her hand squeezes his, where her phone is still clutched. "That won't have to happen."

With one, final encouraging nod, Lena guides her energy to boost her along and speeds through the streets of the suburbs. She finds herself passing through golf courses, woods, and abandoned side-streets, following the infrequent blasts that happen just often enough for her to be sure of the direction in which to run. By the time she reaches it, her heart is pounding hard and her blood rushes in her ears. Sweat dots the back of her neck. The only relief is that of the cool, night air, which blows gently on the small amounts of her bare skin that are exposed.

Lena finds herself at a dilapidated bridge that's not in use anymore. The street lamps lining the abandoned highway blink on and off at random, but some of them stay on, their bulbs buzzing loudly with electricity. She obscures herself from two visible figures by hiding behind a group of trees far away enough that she won't get hit, but still close enough to observe.

The men — now that she's standing still with them in the light, she can see them — are dangerous. That much she can tell by the fact they're in a sketchy area of town with nobody else around, and that one of them is holding some sort of weapon as long as her arm and four times as thick. It screams, "DANGER," but also "COME GET ME ARRESTED."

The one with the weapon wears a beanie tugged low on his head, a thick beard taking up the lower half of his pale face. The other is dark-skinned, confused and slightly alarmed at the weapon guy's enthusiasm about the gun-thing. This must be a trade.

It does explain the van they have. It's probably a stolen vehicle, the kind with a white exterior and no windows on the sides so one can't see into the cargo unless it's through the back doors. The kind of vehicle that parents tell their kids to stay away from in fear their children will get kidnapped. Really, the first rule of being a criminal should be "Don't use vans that will make you look even more suspicious."

Lena can tell that the van is loaded with supplies, but her eyes can't discern exactly what she's looking at. She sees bins full of glowing artifacts of multiple colors and tangles of wires. More weapons? Where the hell did they get all of this tech?

Another blast goes off, causing Lena to jump as the bright-blue grenade of energy hits a street lamp above them and causes it to flicker out immediately. The man holding it gives a terrific cheer as the buyer jolts back in surprise.

"Now, this is crafted from a reclaimed sub-Ultron arm, straight from Sokovia," Beanie Guy informs the other man as he hands the bulky thing over. "Here— you try."

Lena's eyes widen. Sub-Ultron? She knows enough about the Avengers' battle at Sokovia to understand that the thing is highly dangerous and is fully functional of killing her. And others. But, since she's here alone with them, mostly her.

Carefully, she reaches down to her hip and turns the voice-changer on, just in case she has to intervene.

"Man, I wanted something low key," Buyer replies with a crease between his eyebrows. "Like, why are you tryna upsell me, man?"

"Okay, okay, okay," Beanie Guy replies calmly, taking the launcher back and turning around to rummage through the contents of the van, "I got what you need, alright? I got tons of great stuff here. One sec."

Another dark-skinned man dressed plainly in a hoodie and jeans appears from the front side of the vehicle. It's three fully-grown men against a teenage girl. Even with her powers, she isn't positive she could take them on. But she still can't just let them go. Should she call the police? Will these guys just kill the police?

"Okay," Beanie Guy begins, "I got, uh, black hole grenades, Chitauri railguns..."

Lena's eyes widen and she almost makes a sound of shock. Black hole grenades? Her mind can't help but attempt the math. Something capable of doing that isn't even available to scientists now— at least to her knowledge. And where did they find Chitauri remains? The Battle of New York was almost five years ago. It should have been disposed of by now.

"You letting off shots in public now? Hurry up," Hoodie Man urges to the launcher guy. Then, he turns to the buyer more calmly. "Look, times are changing. We're the only ones selling these high-tech weapons."

"I just need something to stick up somebody," Buyer informs him casually, clearly in over his head with the mention of all of the mind-boggling supplies. "I'm not trying to... shoot them back in time."

"I got anti-grav climbers," Beanie Guy drawls on, clearly not hearing the rest of their conversation or not caring about it.

Buyer is suddenly interested in that. He sharply turns toward him, asking, "Yo, climbers?"

Just then, a sudden yodeling song blares into the night and causes Lena to give a violent jolt of fear. It takes a second for her heart to resume beating again. The adrenaline already pulsing through her veins increases by a tenfold from the scare— she didn't need any more fear than she already had.

Her eyes search wildly for the cause, but the tech holders seem confused as well, which means the sound isn't coming from them. The bridge appears totally vacant. From the sound of that song, it must be anything but.

"Okay, what the hell was that?" Hoodie raises a handgun at the buyer. "Did you set us up?"

Lena's stomach drops as the buyer raises his hands in innocence and takes a step back. The annoying song abruptly cuts off. And Spider-Man drops down from the other side of the bridge.

Lena face-plants into the trunk of the tree.

"Hey! Hey! Come on!" he exclaims, voice going a mile a minute and clearly giving away that he has absolutely no plan for the situation. He'd intervened impulsively. "You wanna shoot at somebody, shoot at me."

She can't believe this is actually happening.

But then, to her horror, Hoodie raises the gun toward Peter with a nonchalant shrug. "Alright."

A web shoots out from the teenager's wrist and catches the barrel of the weapon just before it fires. With the tug of his arm, the gun goes flying into the bushes. As soon as he's disarmed, Hoodie hurriedly retreats into the front seat of the van and slams the door shut after him. The buyer is suddenly nowhere to be found. Whether he'd disappeared as soon as Spider-Man showed up or bolted during their short quarrel, Lena isn't sure.

Before she can do anything, Peter charges up to a preoccupied Beanie Guy, who suddenly swings his arm around and slams his fist into the masked boy. He goes flying back into a column of the bridge with incredible force. When he crumples to the ground, Lena can see that he'd hit it so hard that there is a Peter-sized indent in the concrete.

Beanie Guy gives an overly-excited cheer at the result of his blow. Looking more closely, Lena notices that Peter hadn't just been punched. Rather, he'd been hit with some sort of glove that's attached to the man's arm, crackling with live electricity. Another one of their stupid pieces of tech.

"Oh my God." Lena sprints out from her hiding place and crouches down beside a groaning Peter. He's laying face-down on the asphalt. She hooks her arms underneath his, straining to heave him up onto his feet. The boy is heavier than he looks. "Get up."

But before she can pull him very far, Peter suddenly flings out an arm and attaches a web to the back of the van, which latches onto the bumper. She barely has time to gasp before they both start getting pulled along with the moving vehicle. She's only dragged for a few seconds before her hands are ripped from him and she finds herself limply rolling backward into the road. Lena lays there for a second, hissing in pain at the ache from landing directly on her arm and the burns smarting under her cheap suit. She allows herself to acknowledge the pain only for a moment longer before she staggers to her feet and gathers her energy to get her caught up with the van.

She turns the corner of a side-street just in time to see Peter slam into a stone mailbox, smashing it to smithereens. It amazes her how he can hit so many things and still seem mostly unfazed. Aside from panicked screams and a cry of, "Ow, my butt!" Peter seems quite unharmed— a sharp comparison to her, who had taken one fall and is already certain she'll be sporting bruises for a week.

Lena pushes herself even faster. She hears an exclamation of, "Aw, there's two of 'em?" from inside the van, but she isn't sure which of the men said it.

The wind whistles in her ears. When she's moving so fast, she has tunnel vision, meaning everything around her is blurred except for what's directly in front of her. It's that reason why she's barely able to solidify a force field around herself before Beanie Guy launches an electric grenade at her. It explodes harmlessly against the shield of light blue that had burst from her body.

"Hey — ow — Havoc! What's — ow — up?" Peter manages to ask in-between slamming into various garbage cans at the end of driveways and the sides of people's parked cars. Every time one web starts to slip off of the vehicle, he flings his other wrist out and attaches another one with seriously impressive aim. His muscles must be aching. Not to mention he's been dragged on the pavement for nearly five minutes. How much padding can his skintight suit possibly provide?

"Concentrate on not dying!" she shouts back in response.

Lena closes her eyes momentarily and stretches a hand out toward the flailing boy. If she could focus only a little bit more, then she could definitely have formed a decent bubble around each of them. But with Peter's constant movement and her trying to avoid getting blasted while simultaneously running at an inhuman speed, it's not as good as it could have been.

That's why she's really not that surprised when she's hit with another grenade and goes sprawling to the ground. Her body gives a violent shudder as her own energy rebounds into her, a bit of electricity coursing through her veins after it had gotten through the shield.

Lena lays in the middle of the street, her muscles spazzing so they jerk at awkward moments as she puts her weight on her arms, attempting to push herself back up. She can feel her wig slipping off of her head. Haphazardly, she reaches up to adjust it as well as she can with her throbbing muscles.

Peter, having lost control of the van, vainly attempts to shoot another web onto it. The material sticks to the only remaining back door; the metal hinges break off from the force and it comes crashing to the ground.

"Great," Peter drawls sarcastically as the vehicle speeds away. Then, seeming to remember he's not alone, he bends down and grasps one of Lena's arms to help her up. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Fine," she replies with a harsh wince that she knows he can see. "Where did they go?"

"That way." He points west. "But we're gonna have to take a shortcut."

Lena allows him to heave her to her feet, swaying slightly in an attempt to alleviate the ache in her ribs when she puts down weight. Unlike some lucky heroes, she doesn't have super healing abilities. Her body has to mend itself like any other person's would, which makes the whole vigilante thing a hell of a lot harder— especially now that her enemies have alien technology.

Lena is fairly impressed to see Peter jump over a family's seven-foot gate without much of an effort. Knowing she has to keep up somehow, she concentrates before pushing energy out from her hands and aiming them downward like Iron Man. She wobbles into the air and over the fence, gritting her teeth as she unintentionally veers to the left. This totally isn't working.

But Peter doesn't seem to think so. As she drops down beside him with a pained grunt, he comments, "Sweet," as he continues running. And, shit, he's fast.

Lena squeaks in surprise at the appearance of a giant golden retriever bounding toward them excitedly. Peter rears back as the dog jumps on him, wagging its tail at the prospect of having new friends to play with. "Hey! Hey, buddy!"

Although she would very much like to play with the dog, she knows she can't if she wants to catch up with those criminals. She notices a bright green tennis ball in the grass. Snatching it up, she waves it in the air to gain the animal's attention before throwing it across the yard. Due to her lack of athletic ability, it only sails several feet before falling back toward the ground.

"Close enough," she mutters before vaulting herself over another fence.

"This way!" Peter calls to her, flinging out his wrist to attach a web to a nearby streetlight. He's constantly moving, whether it's bouncing on his feet or swinging through the neighborhood, and Lena finds it difficult to keep up.

Ironic. The girl who can't stop moving is having trouble with this.

She frustratedly thrusts her hands behind her and rockets after him. She's only practiced this move a handful of times as a cool experiment— it's nowhere near perfect. That's why she nearly careens right into a treehouse, letting out a scream of surprise and halting her powers so she drops straight down. Before she hits the grass, however, she sends off another blast and rotates her wrists so she curves back into the sky.

Peter accidentally attaches a web to the house and sends the entire thing crashing to the ground as he swings past it. With nothing else to hold onto, his limbs desperately flail in mid-air. He falls right toward a toolshed in someone's backyard. Before he can crash through it, Lena reaches out one hand and sends a gust of energy toward him, which pushes him to the side so he lands safely on the grass. He tucks himself into a roll before popping back to his feet.

"Thanks!" Peter shouts breathlessly. She continues flying above him as he crashes through fence after fence, stumbling with every board he breaks into. Families stare at him in confusion— one man cooking steaks on a grill watches with widened eyes. "Smells really good!"

She can't help but think that this situation is very Ferris Beuller-esque.

Lena watches carefully to make sure there aren't any real dangers in his path. Her heart gives a jolt as she spots a pool in the next yard over, but he merely skids across it with the help of a web. Girls shriek as a tidal wave douses them from head to toe. Lena snickers.

Peter crashes into a stone lawn decoration and lands with a harsh thud on the next person's property. A small tent is right beside him— he barely gets in a casual greeting before twin shrieks from two little girls inside pierce Lena's ears. Quickly, she scoops him up with a current and sends him back on his way, making him yell in surprise as he flies through the air.

Lena grits her teeth from the effort it takes to keep herself up for so long. Her arm muscles ache from their locked positions, and soon she finds herself going on a steady decline toward the ground. Peter notices this. He stops running to watch as she barely touches her feet on the grass before crumpling like a rag doll.

Her muscles are screaming. She can't do that anymore or she'll risk something— she isn't certain what, but she's never had to exert her powers this much before. Stopping petty crimes doesn't involve so much work. It's almost as if, instead of its usual cathartic effect, using this much of her abilities is actually draining her. It doesn't seem fair.

"Hey, come on," Peter coaxes gently, grabbing Lena's arm and pulling her to her feet. Her ankle rolls and she leans on him heavily for support. Breathless pants cause her chest to heave— the wig is sticking to her neck, cheeks probably red from exertion. "Okay, well, just hang on tight."

"No—" Lena barely has time to choke out the warning before Peter hooks an arm around her waist and shoots a web far away. Then they're being pulled by it, and all she can think about is how out of control she feels. Her hands, half-covered in her fingerless gloves, dig into any part of him she can reach. Then her arms loop around his neck to secure a better grip. In the midst of the chaos, she manages to remember to keep her face turned away from his; being so close would definitely make him recognize her.

"Gotcha," Peter mutters as the van comes back into view. Lena feels like a koala, clinging to him as he sprints across rooftops and swings through several more blocks. God, once Graham hears about how she finally teamed up with Spider-Man, only to end up being carried by him like a sloth, she'll never hear the end of it. "Hang on— this landing may be rough."

"Oh my God," Lena mumbles, growing slightly dizzy from the constant movement.

"I've gotcha right where I want you," the boy says to himself as he bounds across another roof. And he leaps, straight toward the van, yelling, "Surprise!"

Except they don't make it to the vehicle. Because they're snatched straight out of the air.

Lena lets out an ear-piercing scream as she slips out of Peter's grasp and does a flip until her only form of contact is his wrist. Peter desperately attempts to hold onto her with a single arm, only it's now much harder since he's being hauled into the air upside down by a figure with mechanical wings.

"I've got you! I've got you!" Peter yells to her as he hauls her closer, her arms straining to keep their grip. She's running on sheer adrenaline by now— it's the only thing keeping her from falling to her death. She gasps as her muscles scream in protest at him hauling her up like this.

"Shit!" Lena cries. Her blonde wig slips off of her head and falls to the shrinking suburbs below. Hairpins rip out of her head from the force of the wind, which only increases its ruthlessness the higher they climb. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

Peter pulls her closer until she has to loop both arms around his middle so she doesn't plummet downward again. She tries not to think too hard about the fact that her stomach is pressing into his face and vice versa, or that if she slips lower, she won't have anything to hold onto.

Lena looks down past her wildly kicking legs. Bad idea. New York is a mere skyline to her— a mass of dark skyscrapers and bright lights. Her heart climbs into her throat as she realizes what they're approaching: a lake.

No. Not water. Anything but water.

Suddenly, Peter's arms instinctively tighten just before they're ripped from the winged man. Lena is barely able to glimpse a pair of glowing green eyes before they plummet downward. Her legs instantly tangle with something— a parachute that had somehow ejected from the Spider-Man suit.

While in the middle of a scream, she realizes her voice is back to normal— the device to alter it is nowhere to be found. She can't feel its familiar weight on her hip. Shit.

Peter is engulfed in the parachute as well, but their arms are scrambling to grab each other even if they can hardly see. Lena is somehow turned around so they're both crashing headfirst toward the ground. She tries to summon energy to form a protective shield around them, but her powers are absolutely spent. Blackness tints the edges of her vision when she attempts to call her abilities.

"Oh my God," she gasps, voice loud and clear as day in their cocoon of fabric. "Oh my God, we're gonna die!"

"Hey, your voice is different!" Peter shouts back.

Lena can't find words to reply with. All she can think about is the fact that they're falling straight toward New York— only if they're lucky will they land in the water. And even then... she can't swim. Could they survive the drop?

She squeezes her eyes shut and releases a terrified sound from deep within her. Her heart pounds so intensely she can hear it pummeling in her ears, and he must be able to feel it through both of their suits. She can feel his hammering just as fast as hers.

Peter vainly attempts to push the parachute back out of their faces. Through his own screams of fear, he keeps trying to fight his way out. Lena would help if she wasn't frozen in fear and close to passing out.

"Peter!" she cries reflexively as he accidentally nails her in the forehead mid-escape-flail. Her eyes fly open once she realizes what she's done. Dammit.

"Wha—" The whites of Peter's mask shrink and grow as he examines what he can see of her face, which is mere inches from his. "Holy — Lena?"

The girl futilely clings onto what's left of her energy, calling the shreds forth to form a wobbling barrier between the teenagers and whatever's below them. Her eyes begin to roll back in her head from how inviting it is to slip into unconsciousness. She's vaguely aware of Peter begging her to stay with him, but in the end, it's not her fault she doesn't stay awake.

They break the surface of the water and the force of it makes Lena instantly black out.

___

raise your hand if you want a friend like graham!!!!

i'm really excited for the next chapter because i think it'll be really cute and it's basically the start of the peter and lena brotp! the friendship groups will start to merge and soon they'll all be one lil nerdy family (':

-kristyn