Two days later, and Nora felt like she had betrayed Peter Parker.

Of course, she tried to go on like nothing happened, like she hadn't felt Ben Parker life waste away in her heart. It was hard to go back to school the next day and pretend that she was fine when no one around her was. Obviously, Ned was a wreck, his best friend's only father figure had died, he had every right to be torn up about it. The day mustn't have been fun for him either, what with every second person coming up to him asking if Peter was alright. Nora ended up having to take most of those people, because she could tell Ned was getting overwhelmed. Ned kept thanking her, telling her she didn't need to do this but Nora just ignored him. She felt like this was one of the few things she could do for Peter and his family.

(Well, saving his uncles life could've been a thing as well, but she pushed that idea from her head the moment it surfaced)

She just felt like she had absolutely failed her friend. Even though he had no idea it was her that night, she still felt like she let him down. Whenever people talked about him, about how it was a tragedy, Nora hated the urge inside her to think that if she had been faster, more equipped, had better control of her power, that maybe she could've saved him and Peter wouldn't have to loose two father figures in the space of one life time.

It really started to get to her at the end of the second day, when she decided to take a trip to the decathlon meeting to finally speak to Liz about Cindy, and possibly walk home with Ned if he wasn't already occupied. When she got there, the meeting was just finished, what with Mr. Harrington packing up his stuff at the front of the table. He did notice her, his eyes lighting up at the sight of a new face. "Yes, can I help you?"

All the students looked up from their desks atop the stage, making Nora suddenly feel very small. She stood there, thumbs twiddling at her chest before she took a step further into the room. "Sorry, am I late?"

Liz shook her head, grabbing her backpack. "No, we were just finishing up, what's up?"

Now, Liz Allan was no way intimidating, the girl was quite sweet and people liked her. Perhaps it was the fact that she was a freshmen talking to a junior that made Nora feel like she was the size of a gnome compared to her. "I came here to talk about Cindy."

The girl nodded. "Oh, awesome, so you got through to her?"

"Not exactly, she's actually on a transfer." Nora cringed internally, these kids were far too smart to buy this. "Overseas or something. It's a thing her mom set up, I think."

Liz followed along silently, before letting out a frustrated sigh. "Great..." she muttered. Despite the bad news, Nora had to commend herself for being able to sell that god awful lie.

Flash butted in, shouting from across the room. "So, she bailed on us?"

Nora felt the need to snap back. "She didn't bail on you, it wasn't her decision."

"I get that, Nora, but we're down one and our competition is in two weeks."

"Well, we're down two if you count Peter." Flash commented, hopping off the stage.

"Flash." Liz warned lowly.

Nora tilted her head to the side, arms folded. "What, no Penis Parker this time? That's a first."

The boy shrugged, something akin to sympathy on his features. "His uncle died, I know when to tell a joke."

A girl with her head in a book brushed past them, scoffing slightly. "Debatable." None of them had the chance to react as she slipped out without another word. Flash scowled at her as she left, Nora sniggering quietly to herself.

"Look, all I'm saying is, I'm not a total jackass."

Ned and Nora exchanged a look before blurting. "Debatable."

"Why are you still here?" Flash asked curtly.

Nora swallowed, stepping a little closer to Liz. "I was thinking, considering how Cindy left a little out of the blue, that I could fill in temporarily. Until she's back at least."

Liz went into thought for a few moments, ignoring Flash who rolled his eyes so hard they looked like they would fall into his head. "I mean, we will have to quiz you to test your knowledge, but otherwise I don't see a problem with it."

Flash balked at the older girl. "Seriously, are we just letting anyone in now?"

His attitude grating on her, Nora narrowed her eyes at him. "What was your percentage on Mr. Tully's biology paper?"

Getting cocky, he answered confidently. "98."

Smirking, Nora knew she had him. "99." She took a few steps closer so she could face off with him. "So, really, you're the one they shouldn't be letting in."

Around them, the team hissed as Flash looked just about ready to kill her. However, this battle was ended by Ned walking up to Nora. "Nora, you said you wanted to walk home together?"

Giving him a sickly sweet smile, Nora waved goodbye to Flash. "Catch you at the next meeting." with that, she left Flash in the dust, smiling to herself as Abraham began teasing him about his over cockiness.

They exited the school together in silence. Nora knew something was up because Ned would've at least said something by now. So, in an effort to make him feel better, she asked. "So, any more Spider-Man updates? Shane Dawson's gone dark on me."

That seemed to perk Ned up a little bit. "Not really, he's kind of taken a break these past few days, but something else happened in the meantime."

"Really, what?"

"Peter told me someone tried to help his uncle."

Well, now she regrets starting this conversation.

"Yeah, he said this girl in this weird white and gold suit had these weird glowy hands that took Ben's pain away. Apparently people were videoing her and everything."

Trying to mask the genuine shock that washed over her, she turned her wide eyes into surprise. "V-video?"

"Yeah, there's stuff on YouTube. They haven't given her a name yet though, just the girl in gold."

Great, Nora thinks, now Aliya's really gonna kill me.

"And um," she cleared her throat. "How does Peter feel about her?"

Ned shrugged. "I don't know, to be honest, I think right now that doesn't matter to him."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "No of course not."

"I think right now, all he needs is someone to tell him he's not alone."

Nora halted. "What do you mean by that?"

Again, Ned shrugged. "Even though he has May, he still thinks it's his fault for the death. He feels isolated. I tried to get through to him, but it didn't work."

Nora felt a pang of emotion hit her chest, feeling as though Ned was talking about her in a way. She could relate in some way, hearing about her mom and everything that happened made her feel like the loneliest person in the world, despite having family there for her. "Do you think he'd mind if I called over?"

For the first time in two days, Ned Leeds grinned. "I think he'd love it."

-

"Okay, Nora, you can do this. Just tell Mrs. Parker you have notes to give Peter. That's all you have to do."

All of a sudden, delivering Spanish notes was one of the most crucial moments in Nora Mendes' life.

Later that day, after discussing with Ned for far too long, she ended up just giving into  her first plan she had thought of earlier that morning. Spanish was the first class of the day, and for some reason, Nora found herself getting worried. Her brain rationalised that, what if there was a test and Peter didn't know about it? Well, looks like you gotta take down an extra set of notes just in case. Maybe she was being a little too invasive, but she couldn't help but wonder, did Peter think like that when she was gone for that week?

She hoped so, because otherwise she would feel like complete and utter idiot.

Arriving at the door, Nora felt her movements shake as she knocked on the door. "Get yourself together, Mendes." She whispered to herself. "You just giving him notes, that you wrote for him, and giving him back his binder." She sighed. "Nothing wrong with that."

After a few moments, a very gorgeous woman opened the door, sniffling and wiping her eyes. "Hello?"

For a moment, while Nora's heart shattered into a million pieces, she forgot how to form a sentence. "H-hi, Mrs. Parker. I'm just here to bring Peter some notes. We're in the same Spanish class, which is rather obvious because I'm here with notes. Um, he doesn't have to take them, I-I just wanted to make sure he's caught up, that's all."

Throughout her stuttering and stammering, Mrs. Parker watched her, a warm smile growing slowly on her lips. "You must be Nora." she said once the child had finished.

Nora blinked at the softness in her voice, at the look in her eye that made her feel like she was something sacred. "Yes, that's me."

"I'll see if he wants to talk." she dipped back into the apartment, leaving Nora clutching onto the binder with a very funny feeling growing in her chest. May arrived out again, a little more livelier. "He's in his room sweetheart."

"Thank you." Nora answered quickly, stepping into the apartment. The easy part was over, now came the hard part. Or, where Nora was standing, the hard part was over, now came the excruciating difficult part.

She stopped at the door to the boy's room, before turning around to May in the kitchen, still trying to rid her eyes of the tears. "Mrs. Parker." She looked up. "I'm sorry about your husband."

Touched, the older woman replied. "Thank you."

Nora didn't really know what to expect when she entered Peter's room. The only teenage boy's room she'd ever been in was Rafe's and she never wants to return. However, when she entered this room, it was vastly different. A small single bed lay in the centre, tons of old school technology littered the only desk in the room and the closet was to her left. Peter was sprawled on the bed, phone in hand. He was facing away from her, but he gave off the impression that he knew she was there.

"H-hey, Peter." was all she could say, frozen on her spot next to the closet.

He didn't turn around, and Nora hated that. "Hey, Nora."

"I, uh, I brought some Spanish notes. Ms. Suarez is kind of on our asses at the moment so," he only shifted in his spot, "yeah."

"Thanks."

Nora bit her lip, suffocating in the silence. "Will I just leave it on the table?"

"Sure." she did so, entering the room properly and seeing the disheveled boy illuminated by his phone light. His hair wasn't gelled back like usual, it was more curly and wild. His hoodie was up and he looked like he hadn't slept in a week. After putting the binder down, she slowly made her way over to him.

"Ned's been asking for you. Wants to make sure you're alright."

Peter finally looked up at her, seeing her smile as delicately as she could. "I should probably get back to him."

"Yeah, but he understands you need space." Nora giggled. "I, on the other hand, have no sense of that. That's why I'm here now."

Peter shook his head. "It's fine, it's kind of cute." realising his mistake once Nora's face went crimson, he turned the other way in the bed. "Never mind."

"Have you been sleeping?" She asked, ignoring his previous comment.

"Does it matter?" The answer was no, not when Spider-Man was trying to track down the robber that killed his uncle.

"Peter," Nora sounded like a mother, but she didn't care, not when her friend's health was in jeopardy, "try to get some sleep, please."

"Why do you care if I get sleep or not?" He sounded like a petulant child, but he didn't care either.

She gave him a look. "Because I'm pretty sure zombie Peter isn't as fun as normal Peter. And besides, sleep helps with things like this. It relaxes you."

"Dr. Mendes now, huh?"

"My sister is a nurse, so I relatively know stuff." Coming over to face him, she crouched down until they were face to face. "I brought something else." He raised a brow, but didn't respond past that. Nora dove into her backpack, pulling out something wrapped in foil. "Rafe baked some cookies over the weekend and there's still a few left. I stole them because sometimes, eating is the only way to feel good about things."

Peter hummed a laugh, eyeing the foil. "You can stay." He muttered into his pillow, snatching the cookies from her.

She grinned. "Sweet!" She took to the swivel chair at his desk, catching the cookie he threw at her. After a few minutes of eating, she grew quietly, softly saying. "Hey, Peter?"

"Mmm?" He hummed, mouth full.

"You know you're my friend right?" he nodded slowly unsure of where she was going with this. "Then I need to tell you, I know exactly how you feel."

Something about the way she said that, kicked Peter in the stomach. The way she said it made Peter believe her one hundred percent. He nodded dumbly, mouth full of chocolate. When he was done he asked. "Who?"

"Mom and dad."

They spent the next two hours in his room, watching tv, doing homework, talking about their respective tragedies. At a point, Peter finally let the emotion out and began to bawl. Nora was at his side in a second, taking him into her arms. She shushed him, threading her hands through his thick mop of hair. Peter eventually silenced, feeling a warmth spread through him that put him at ease. He found himself falling asleep on his friend, with her arms around him. "Hey, Nora?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry about your parents."

"I'm sorry about your uncle."

She texted Rafe later that night to pick her up outside of the Parkers apartment complex, after May walked in on Peter sleeping soundly on Nora's shoulder and worked together to get her out of his hold. He came to pick her up minutes later. "How did that go?"

"I don't know, but I think he's getting better."

And she was right, he was starting to get better.

Nora just needed to start piecing him back together.

-

A/N: I think I speak for everyone when I say aWWWWW

It's one am. I wrote this at one am. God save my soul.

Comment, vote & follow! - emma