chapter xxx.
( homecoming )

shadows fall over my heart, i blackout
the moon, i wait for you to come around
baby, you should come with me
i'll take you to the dark side
everything black ─── unlike pluto & mike taylor

queens, new york
august 3, 2016

"I have to tell you..." May suddenly pauses, pushing a hand out to me, "I'm sorry, Lisa, but I'm not a fan of that Tony Stark."

I slowly pull my glass of water from my lips, staring at my aunt with wide eyes.

Oh. Well, this is awkward.

Maria puckers her lips and blows a bubble at my aunt, her little face twisted as she sits on a high chair beside me. Peter is so focused on twirling his fork through his larb that I'm not even sure he's listening, which makes this all the more weird for me.

"You're distracted all the time. He's got you in your head."

I turn to Maria and quickly give her a bottle, trying desperately to avoid being involved in this conversation. She gurgles into the bottle, her little hands sliding up the the curves of the plastic as I make a face at her. I'm used to people not loving Tony, but there's nothing like your aunt stating that she doesn't really like your father. I mean, I guess he doesn't really have the best track record with her. He did, however unknowingly, get her younger sister pregnant when they were seventeen. To be fair, nobody really likes the guy that got their seventeen year old sister pregnant.

"Delmar's Sandwiches was destroyed..." A professional-sounding voice breaks into my thoughts and May's one-sided conversation.

Making a confused face, my eyes slowly trail up from Maria to the TV that is sitting by the wall. On the screen, there's a video of Peter and I at the ATM from only hours ago.  Peter and I quickly glance at each other, me frowning and him uncomfortably shifting in his seat. Maria's finger pokes into my cheek and I carefully lower the bottle from her mouth, still concernedly staring at the TV screen.

"What does he have you doing?" May keeps going, not yet seeing what we were the cause of.

"... in an explosion..."

"You need to use your instincts." She informs my little brother, neither of us really listening at all.

"...after an ATM robbery was thwarted by Queens' own crime stopper..."

"What?" May slowly follows our line of sight and her lips curl into a deep grown, making us nervously glance at each other.

"...the Spider-Man."

A picture of Peter, all decked out in his red and blue suit, walking out of the port-a-potty and trying to pick a piece of toilet paper off of his foot comes onto screen next. Peter drops his hand from his plate and I give a quiet snort before my little brother narrows his eyes at me.

"As the Spider-Man attempted to foil their heist, a powerful blast was set off, slicing through the bodega across the street. Miraculously, no one was harmed,"

My heart leaps into my throat and my hand shoots out to Peter's, quickly snatching onto his hand in a panic. He doesn't need the publicity, but he's in a suit. I was just in a hoodie and a hat, and not matter how much any of us thinks it's a good disguise, it's really not.

And as the video comes on, I wait with a cringe to see my face displayed on the screen. But the thing is, as the footage starts, I'm absolutely nowhere to be seen. Throughout the entire clip of Peter taking down the ATM robbers dressed as the Avengers, there's this... glitch where I once was.

And with the glitch in the footage, I wasn't even there.

Peter and I look at each other quickly, our expressions mirroring the other's with wide eyes and slightly agape mouths. What in the world...? Neither of us even thought about the footage in the ATM, so neither of us clearly even touched the footage! So... who did? May turns back to us quickly, shocking us out of our stupor and making us fall back into innocence.

"If either of you spot something like that happening," she jabs her thumb over her shoulder, leveling her gaze on us, "you two turn and you run the other way."

Oh God, she's totally going to kick our butts when she finds out the truth. It's not an 'if'; it's a total 'when'.

"Yeah." Peter and I simultaneously quickly nod, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course."

"Six blocks away from us!" She exclaims in disbelief, shaking her head over at Maria as if the near month old can understand her.

"I need a new backpack." Peter suddenly interrupts before she can say anything else, displaying a flat smile.

Eyebrows furrowing, May juts her chin forward and taps a finger to her ear, "What?"

"I... need a new backpack." I awkwardly scratch my forehead, glancing between the two.

"That's five." May sighs and looks back down at her meal.

My eyes widen and I bump Peter's foot with mine, mouthing, "Five?!"

"Whoops." He sheepishly shrugs and I smirk, rolling my eyes and taking another sip of water.

One of the waiters suddenly steps over to our table, setting a white dish beside May and announcing, "Sticky rice pudding."

"Oh, we didn't order that."

"It's on the house." And then... he winks.

I choke on my water and come up coughing, making Maria coo at me and Peter awkwardly pat my back, clearly used to this. May presses a smile up at the waiter.

"Oh. Thanks." After he walks away, May casually looks down at the food to quietly hum, "That's nice of him."

"Uh huh." I clear my throat, sharing a small and laughing smile with Peter, "Very nice."

Peter squints his eyes and points his fork after the waiter, "I think he larbs you."

    But even as I laugh when May pulls a very shocked expression at Peter's words, I can't help but look back at the screen and wonder just who exactly is the cause of this glitch.

    Who would want to protect me like that?

    And if it's not about protection, the question is: what do they want from me?

♕♕♕

A whole twenty-four hours later, May's little car pulls up in front of a big fancy house that is full of pounding music and flashing lights and crazy people. Ugh, parties. I always hated parties with such a passion. They always consisted of random guys and too loud of music and too much alcohol. And I've never been any good at that kind of stuff.

"Okay, so this is it, I guess." I pull off to the side of the suburb's street, letting out a small of, admittedly, relief at not having killed us. "See? I told you I could get us here safely."

"Uh, ha-ha, yeah." Peter awkwardly laughs from beside me, his eyes darting around and his hands still clinging onto the strap of his seatbelt.

"Dude!" I pull a face at him and throw up a hand, "You are so dramatic. Ned, you're fine back there, right?"

I glance in the rearview mirror to see Peter's friend, Ned, sitting in the middle with his arms spread out on either side of him and holding tightly onto the car's back seats. His eyes are huge and he has the fear of God ingrained into them. His long-sleeve covered arms tremble a bit as he slowly rests his kneecaps, rubbing off the nervous sweat. Peter swallows hard and lets out a tight and quiet breath, his eyes turning over to the house and his lips pursing. I hum quietly to myself, pressing my own lips into a thin frown.

"Miss Lisa?" Ned calls from the back, his brown hat tilting back as he stares after me.

"Ned, you don't have to call me 'Miss', remember?" I turn back to look at him, shaking my head and raising my brows, "We talked about this for ten minutes on the way here."

"Yeah, right, right, sorry, but, uh, you're, like," he coughs out a laugh, "a really bad driver."

"So I've been told." I roll my eyes and sigh.

"Who taught you how to drive?" Ned leans forward to peer at the side of my face, "Was it your dad? Because I feel like Iron Man would be a good driver."

"Uh,"

"I mean, he flies the suits and he has a lot of fancy cars so I feel like he would know how not to crash them. But I read that you guys had a driver so maybe he doesn't actually know."

"Well,"

"Maybe Captain America taught you! But he doesn't look too fun to learn how to drive with."

"Ned,"

"He looks like would be all like, 'put on your seatbelt', and 'slow down', 'watch out for the pedestrians' or 'turn left so we can play bingo'!"

"Bingo?"

"Is he grumpy? He kinda looks grumpy."

"Alrighty, then!" I butt in, awkwardly glancing away from him over to Peter, "You two boys ready to go?"

As soon as the question leaves my mouth, I notice how pale Peter and how taut his shoulders are beginning to look. And I'm about 88% sure it's not from my driving. He's nervous and I'm not exactly certain that it's because this is a party. There's something else going on here, something that they knew I wouldn't like and chose not to tell me... These two boys have something planned.

Still, my voice softens and I try hard to sound peppy, trying to encourage him, "May said this is your first party of the year! That's gotta be exciting, right?"

"It'll be a night to remember." Ned laughs and agrees from the back.

'A night to remember'? That's a little fishy, but okay.

"Yeah, it's gonna be great for you two. You just gotta be confident enough in yourselves to relax and have fun, okay?"

"Yeah, like this hat." Ned grins and bobs his head from side to side, "It gives me confidence."

"Very cool." I fake a grin and a nod, trying to figure out just how the heck I ended up getting stuck with two, albeit cute, fifteen year olds to share a serious secret with.

"This is a mistake." Peter suddenly whirls back around to look at me, his brown puppy dog eyes wide and worried, "Hey, let's just go home."

My peppy grin fades and I sigh a little, shaking my head down to the steering wheel, "I was really, really hoping I wouldn't have to do this, but fine. You forced my hand." The two fifteen year olds raise their eyebrows at me, "Pete, are you feeling insecure in your body?"

"Wait, what?!" He looks at me with a disgusted expression.

I shrug and soldier on, "I've just heard that a lot of boys your age are going through an uncomfortable stage in life, as they grow into their bodies and,"

He rolls his eyes up and mocks a laugh, "May set you up to this, didn't she?"

"She did!" I cringe weakly, "How did I do?"

"Not too bad, I'm feeling very uncomfortable now actually, yeah."

"Good." I smirk and bump his shoulder, "Come on, Petey, go with Ned and try to have fun, okay?"

He heaves a sigh and a nod, "Yeah, okay, let's do it. I'm gonna go."

"Aw, you go, bud!"

"You sound so patronizing, it's ridiculous." Peter informs me, climbing out of the car with a frown.

"It's my duty as your big sister." I wink at him and laugh, "Have a good time, guys."

"We will!" Ned calls back as he climbs out out of the car after Peter. The two stand on the sidewalk and Ned holds up a hand, goofily waving at me, "Bye, Lis-," Peter gives him a sudden harsh and stiff elbow in the gut, "-ba!"

Lisba. Lisba. You have got to be kidding me. I am so going to get caught.

"Oh good Lord." I mumble through my gritted, smiling teeth, waving back.

    As soon as I see the boys walk up the driveway, I pull out my phone and purse my lips at the small flashing dot on my the screen. The small car slowly drives along orange lit roads, following the path of the dot on my phone until I end up in a more secluded part of the suburbs, stopping underneath an overpass in a park. I watch the blip on my phone for another long moment, my lips still bent down into a frown and a heavy sigh exiting my mouth. I push my back into the seat and drop my phone in my lap, staring at the roof of the car.

Coming here was the whole reason I offered to take the boys to the party tonight instead of May. But I still can't ignore the voice in my head, which sounds suspiciously like Tony's, that keeps telling me that I shouldn't do this, shouldn't get involved. And I have this whole dichotomy going on in my head.

'It could be dangerous.' But it could be more dangerous not knowing.

'You could get caught.' But I could catch these guys who are supposedly from Toomes Salvage Company doing something far worse.

'You should just mind your own corner and keep your head down.' But if I do, then I'll never know what Michael Allan wanted from me in the first place.

I roll the back of my head against the headrest to stare out the window. A sudden burst of purple energy explodes in the nearly black sky and I jump in my seat, my eyes nearly popping out of my head. The energy shrinks back down, but something in the air still lingers.

'It's time to tap out.'

"Shut up, Tony." I groan and press my forehead to the glass. "Ugh, this is such a bad idea." I grumble to myself, throwing open the car door and stepping out onto the street.

Letting out a sigh, I yank the zipper up of my tight leather jacket until it curls up my neck and then over my mouth. The white straps on the sides of my leather pants and the glowing white wires webbed throughout my jacket light up as soon as the zipper reaches the top. Shuri was kind enough to throw together a bit of a gift before I left, even though I told her I wouldn't need a suit. Turns out the kid already knew I would probably get into some kind of trouble.

My feet are silent as the creep along the earth, moving closer to the sound of voices where the explosion was only a few seconds ago. I reach the sharp concrete corner of the bridge and I lean my back against the wall, counting to three before I carefully glance around it. Four men are all around the dark and shady place, three of the men are standing around while the fourth is lounging on the back ledge of an open white van. The three standing men are talking, some kind of a business deal is going on and my eyes widen when I see a stack of Chitauri-looking weapons piled at the back of the van.

Out of the three that appear to the be the sellers, one seems pretty obnoxious while one seems more laidback and the other... I'm not sure. He just seems... above it all. A shadow hangs from the open van door, making his face hazy and hard to see. A strange green glow comes from his back and, from what I can see, there are strange cords and wires twisting over the skin of his hands, and small charges are locked onto the tips of his fingers. I've never seen anything like it.

The obnoxious man suddenly pulls the trigger on one of the large weapons and a huge blue explosion bursts off to into the trees, lightning bursting off the surrounding area. The light from the explosion bursts back and shines upon the fourth man's face, illuminating each detail of his dark features and reflecting off of his snake-like green eyes. And God knows I would recognize those particular eyes anywhere. All of the feeling leaves my body and a silent gasp struggles out of my lungs. I hurriedly spin around, slamming my back back against the wall and angrily squeezing my eyes shut.

I-I just didn't expect to find him so easily. Oh God, I wasn't ready.

'I hate to say I told you so, but...'

"Shut. Up." I grumble under my breath before I glance back around.

The obnoxious man yells and cheers at the sight, laughing like some kind of madman. Michael Allan jolts to his feet, some kind of black and green glowing contraption stabbed into his spine whirring as he moves. His mocha-colored hands clench into fists and his eyes narrow viciously.

"Hey!" He barks at the obnoxious man, "Are you trying to get us caught or are you just stupid?"

"You need to chill, pretty boy." The obnoxious man mockingly points at him before he laughs and talks to his buyer, "Now, this is crafted from a reclaimed sub-Ultron arm straight from Sokovia. Here." He tries to hand the massive weapon over to the reluctant buyer, "You try."

"I wanted something low-key." The dark-skinned man with droopy eyes mumbles, "Like, why are you trying to upsell me, man?"

"Okay, okay." The guy quickly tries to backpedal, not wanting to lose a customer, "I got what you need, all right? I got tons of great stuff here. One sec." He tries to push Michael aside to get to the van, but the man doesn't even budge at the contact, instead knocking the other man off his feet.

Michael raises an eyebrow blankly down at him, "Oh, did you need to get by? I'm sorry." Somehow, he doesn't sound too sorry to me.

The other seller rolls his eyes, "Okay. If you're letting off shots in public now, then we gotta hurry up."

Michael casually looks away from the obnoxious man who irritatedly tries to get back up.

The other seller steps over to the buyer, saying quietly, "Look, times are changing. We're the only ones selling these high-tech weapons."

"This must be where the ATM robbers got their stuff." A voice suddenly whispers from over my shoulder.

I slap a hand over my own mouth to keep me from shrieking before I whirl around and blindly raise my fist.

"Whoa, whoa!" A red-covered hand snatches onto my fist and a body flips upside down until it's standing in front of me, "Hey, hey, it's me! It's me! Look!"

It takes me a good ten seconds to process the fact that I am, in fact, staring at the Spider-Man mask.

"Oh my word, Peter!" I hiss lowly, dragging my hands from my face, "What are you doing here?! You're supposed to be at a party - away from this!"

"Yeah, I know, but I saw the explosion and I," a strange little yodeling tune interrupts my brother's weak defense and Peter panickedly pulls out his phone that has Ned's face all squished up on the screen.

"Dude." I stare at him long and hard, "Are you asking to die?"

"Okay, what is that?!" We both simultaneously turn to look around the corner as the sellers raise their weapons at the only other man there, "Did you set us up?"

The buyer's hands fly up in surrender and he quickly looks at the gun, "Hey, hey, man!"

"Hey!" Peter suddenly leaps from my side and around the corner, throwing his own hand sup, "Hey, come on. You gonna shoot at somebody, shoot at me!"

He really is asking to die.

Michael's eyebrows twitch down in almost intrigued confusion before the other seller shrugs, "All right."

He then swiftly turns around and points his weapon at my brother while the buyer quickly turns and sprints away before he can get caught. Peter shoots out a web, snatching and yanking the gun away before he begins running for them. I let out a groan and quickly follow after him, not willing to let him get killed all alone.

We're both sprinting for them when suddenly Peter gets launched back behind me and I try leap up to land a punch only to have a hand clasp around my throat and catch me midair.

I cough out a ragged choking sound and my eyes quickly dart down to find Michael Allan holding me up in the air by his hand that is covered completely in wires. With bared teeth and a grunt, I double tap my thrusters against each other, making the wires in my jacket light up and then burst with a fit of light. Letting out a small yell, Michael drops me back into the earth and I end up coughing once more as he stands over me.

I look up at him with wide eyes as he just glares down at me, his head cocking to the side in disgust. I know he had the upper hand. We both do. He can kill me right here and now, and I wouldn't be able to stop him. But he doesn't. Why? Instead, he turns around and he sprints for the van that is madly racing away, hopping into its back before it turns the corner.

"Come on!" Peter suddenly yells, shooting a web for the back of the van and then sliding along the ground by me, grabbing quickly at my ankle as he passes.

"Wait, wait, Peter, wait-," but there's definitely no waiting because suddenly he's being harshly yanked after the car and then I'm being dragged along behind him.

Peter and I panickedly yell as the van takes a sharp turn, skidding us across the now tarmac road and then into a group of trash cans. We skid and jolt across the suburban roads, being twisted around and struggling to get any sense of balance.

"This is awful!" I shriek over as we run into the curb and smack into each other's bodies.

Peter shoots a web at me, sticking me to the back of the van as he tries to get his own self straightened out. Suddenly a flash of pink light shines out of the back of the van and then one of the back doors is flying for our faces.

"Duck!" Peter yells and we both throw our spines back, barely dodging the flying metal as we continue sliding on the ground, "Ow, my butt!"

Another bolt of pink energy flies for us and I panickedly kick Peter in his butt, launching us both out of the way before the ground is blown up between us. In the van, Michael smashes his fist into the obnoxious man and then the energy gun is being thrown out of the back and tumbling into the grass nearby. The car takes around sharp turn, throwing us both into the side of a van before the van then drags us through a row of trash cans, garbage literally flying into our faces and all around us. And then suddenly we're coming to a short and hard stop, Peter flying face first into a brick mailbox and me flying into his back. All that resounds is the sound of crumbling brick and our synchronized 'ows!'. Our webs on the van are snapped and they just keep driving.

Peter hurriedly leaps up, trying to latch onto the only surviving back door and instead yanking it right off, "Great!" Peter yells sarcastically, "Guess we're gonna have to take a shortcut."

My limbs flail around as I try to get back up and run after him, groaning when I see him leaping over a metal fence. Worriedly glancing around, I hurriedly power up my thrusters and then easily land onto the ground beside him.

We sprint by two guys playing ping pong in a garage, "Hey, guys. Good game. Have fun!" We run into the backyard where a very excited dog runs over to us, "Whoo! Hey, hey, buddy! Sorry, no time to play." Peter throws a stick, "Here, go fetch."

Peter moves to take off by himself again, but I grab onto his shoulders and give him a look, "Hang on! You are taking me with you. Alright?"

"Deal!" He sounds way too excited for this before he wraps an arm around me and then we're slinging through the streets, "Now, this is more like it!"

Chaos follows in our wake as we rush on, taking down some poor kid's treehouse and destroying some guy's workshed, a few people's fences, gliding across people's pools, frightening poor children, and running across people's roofs as the van still just passes us by as we're so close.

"Almost got ya!" I skate along the rim of someone's roof as Peter tiredly adds in, "Thought you got away from us, didn't you? We got you right where we want you." With a final yell, Peter leaps off the edge of the roof, "Surprise!"

But then my brother is ripped from my side as large claws clamp around his foot and yank him up into the air.

"No!"

His hand panickedly grasps the air for mine and I quickly snag my fingers with his, our hands wrapping around each other's and holding on tightly. The both of us yell as he's pulled into the sky and I allow him to pull me up into the darkness with him. The wind screams and sails past us and the yellow-lit ground gets further and further away.

The metal clamps around Peter's foot doesn't loosen and neither does our grip on each other's hands. While we begin to enter the clouds and full white moon seems to grow closer, we desperately fight to get Peter free from the strange metal bird-like person with beady green eyes. Eyes narrowing, I finally raise my thruster and aim for the birdman's face. The metal thruster begins to whir with power and white light begins to form. But then, before I can fire, the birdman suddenly throws a foot forward and his claw kicks me in the face. My vision goes black and I can barely feel my hand torn from my brother's.

And as I flip and topple down through the dark air, all I can hear is Peter scream for me.

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