Chapter 10: Where They're Fools

Only fools fall for you,
Only fools do what I do,
only fools fall
- Troye Sivan

After some persuasion and a lot of begging Ice Sorceress decided to give Spider-Man the alien object so he could find out more about it. Ember had a terrible feeling that this decision would backfire at some point, yet she pushed those thoughts away from the moment. She agreed to trust Spider-Man and to work better as a team.

"What's with the gloves?" asked Michelle, nodding towards the black gloves her friend was wearing, as they sat on the bus driving them to school. Last night after Ember left to investigate the explosion, Michelle wasted no time on running away from the dreadful party. Meaning she didn't know about her injury and Ember preferred it that way, she didn't see the point in telling anyone about it when she was already healing, slowly but healing nonetheless. As she was getting ready for school this morning, the redness was almost gone, but the blisters remained as did the dull pain all over her hand.

"Just cold" mumbled Ember, holding her hand close to her chest, trying to hide it from Michelle's inquisitive eyes, while her free hand played with her sweater. . For someone with a secret identity, Ember was terrible at lying and by the look the brunette was giving her it appeared like she hadn't improved at all.

"We're at 75 degrees. Its the hottest day of the month!"

Michelle reached forward to grab her covered hand, just as the bus stopped in front of the school. "Oh, look we're here! I better run you know I don't want to be late again!" Ember said, bolting out off her seat, rushing to class before her friend had the chance to say or do anything.

❅

Peter found himself hammering the alien weapon during shop class in an attempt at freeing its glowing core. That was one of the perks of being an outsider, no one even bothered to look at him let alone question what the strange object was.

"Hey, thanks for bailing on me." Said Ned, still a little annoyed by his friend's disappearance at the party.

"Yeah, well, something came up." Peter said apologetically, gesturing to the object on his hands.

"What is that?"

"I don't know. Some guy tried to vaporize me and Ice Sorceress with it." Peter explained like it was the most casual thing in the world, now using a screwdriver trying to break the weapon.

"Seriously?" Ned exclaimed, any hint of annoyance long gone, replaced by pure excitement and amusement " Awesome!"

Peter turned to look at him weirdly, making Ned rethink the situation and retracting his words "I mean, not awesome. Totally uncool of that guy. So scary." He mumbled, trying to reassure Peter that his almost dead experience wasn't something to be thrilled about.

Peter turned to look at him funnily one more time, before focusing on the problem at hand "Well, look, I think it's a power source."

"Yeah, but it's connected to all these microprocessors.That's an inductive charging plate. That's what I use to charge my toothbrush." Ned added pointing to all the parts connected to the power source.

"Whoever's making these weapons is combining alien tech with ours." Peter realized, making a mental note about informing Ice Sorceress about his conclusion, pride filling his mind at the thought of showing his fellow heroine that leaving him in charge of a task wasn't the worst.

"That is literally the coolest sentence anyone has ever said." Ned fused, eyes wide open looking intensely at the front, all of his nerdy dreams finally coming true "I just want to thank you for letting me be part of your journey, into this amazing-"

Suddenly, Ned's planned and Oscar worthy speech got cut off by Peter's imitation of Thor, abruptly swinging his hammer down narrowly missing his friend's head, finally managing to break the power source free.Barry Hapgood was in the middle of "supervising" his students partake in their projects and activities. In actuality, Hapgood was solving puzzles in an activity book that he recently became invested in. Unbeknownst to him however, Peter Parker and Ned Leeds were examining the Chitauri Energy Core that Peter had recently acquired.

"Keep your fingers clear of the blades." Mr. Hapgood warned his students, unfazed by  the two friends commotion, still invested in his book.

"I gotta figure out what this is and who makes it before I talk to Ice Sorceress" Announced staring curiously at the glowing power source.

"Oh god she's my favorite ! Do you think you could get me an autograph?" Ned gushed at the mention of one of New York's dearest heroine, could his life get any better? Peter looked at him in disbelief, muttering a 'dude' while pointing at the situation at hand. "Right. We'll go to the lab after class and run tests." Ned suggested.

Peter silently agreed and the two friends do their secret handshake without tearing their eyes away from the alien tech.

❅

Ember roamed around the corridors after grabbing her stuff for last period. She was still avoiding Michelle and her questions, the brunette kept going on and on about how the blonde still wore her gloves and how she wasn't taking any notes during all their classes together. It wasn't until now, that Ember managed to escape her friend with the excuse of finding Peter Parker.

She spotted him in front of his locker talking with Ned. Neither of the boys noticed her as she made her way towards them. "Hey guys." She greeted, gently taping Peter's shoulder, watching in amusement as he practically jumped away from her touch, crashing into his locker, almost dropping all his books, when he tried to turn to look at her.

Ned chuckled at his friend making a fool out of himself in front of the blonde girl. Peter said he liked Liz but the way he looked at the senior could never compare to his lovesick fool act he put every time Embers was around. And Ned was begging to notice it more and more with each passing day.

Peter glared at Ned, recovering his balance to look at the intruder ears red from embarrassment "H-hi Ember"

Just like last night at the party, both teenagers couldn't seem to stop smiling at each other, both blushing slightly forgetting about what was going on around them. Ned stood there awkwardly, feeling like he was intruding in their little moment. He looked around the hall unsure of what to do, should he just make a run for it and leave the two alone? Take a picture to blackmail Peter and show it to Aunt May? Or perhaps just puke at their sickeningly cute stare ?
Fortunately for him, Ember noticed his discomfort clearing her throat and braking the moment.

"So, I was thinking you could come to my place after school. " Ember finally said, avoiding to look at Peter, not like it mattered since he seemed to have found the  Spanish book on his hands incredibly interesting.  Ned however turned to look at her eyes and mouth equally wide open at the girl inviting Peter to hangout, hitting said boy slightly to get his attention. "You know for our physics project, what do you say?" She quickly added after seeing  Ned's reaction.

"Yeah" Peter said, nodding his head enthusiastically until he noticed Ned shaking his head from behind Ember, pointing to his backpack, moving his arms like crazy, earning some odd looks by the passing students. Peter had no idea what he was trying to tell him.

"We also have to work on something after school" Ned cut in, throwing his arm around Peter's shoulders, quietly mumbling in his ear  'glowy thingy', the young hero finally catching onto what Ned meant.

"Oh that's fine" Ember shrugged off, glancing at the two friends suspiciously "But the project is due Monday and I'm leaving for decathlon tomorrow"

"Right! We could, uh-" Peter tried to think of a solution, he wanted to spend time with Ember even if it was just for a school project but he had Spider-Man stuff to deal with first.

"You're not leaving me to do this project all by myself are you Parker?" The blonde asked skeptically at the boy's apparent lack of interest.

"Of course not!"

"Good. Then I'll see you at my place today at 6:30pm. That should give you two enough time for whatever it is your doing" Ember stated not even bothering to ask, she wasn't taking a no for an answer.

Peter stood shocked, unable to grasp how in a simple matter of seconds he agreed to go at Ember's place. The nerdy boy started babbling not able to stop the words that escaped his mouth like they had a mind of they're own."Great, I'll see you then! Not that I won't be seeing you before, cause you know we have class, and we see each other there. Not that I'm staring, cause that would be creepy" his voice fading slowly, he just wanted to smack himself on the face. He was literally useless at talking to girls

"See you around guys" chuckled Ember, amused by Peter's embarrassment turning around to run at her class only to be stopped by Peter's voice. "See you Em"
The boy quickly caught on to his mistake and cleared his throat nervously. "I mean Ember, sorry" he had heard the blonde express her hate for the nickname every time Flash used it, but when it came from Peter's mouth it didn't bother her. In fact she loved it, how was it that with just one word and two letters he made her legs weak and her whole body tingly.

"It's alright, Pete" she flashed him a dashing smile turning on her heels and practically skipping to her class.

Both, Peter and Ember unable to stop smiling like the fools they were.

❅

[word count: 1665]

A/n: I know it's shit but I really wanted to update.

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