chapter xxxii.
(   homecoming   )

ayy, gettin' old, they doubted us
makes it that more marvelous
like what's up danger?
what's up danger ─── blackway & balck caviar

parker residence, queens, new york
august 13, 2016

"Dude!"

"What?"

"Stop flirting with my sister!"

"Flir-? Wha-What? Psh, 'flirting', I'm not flirting with your- no, I'm not!"

I sit on the bottom bunk of the stacked bed in Peter's room, blankly staring off at the wall and twiddling my thumbs as the two teenage boys argue over me like I'm some kind of toy that they don't want to share.

And I thought Tony and Pepper were bad.

"Yes, you are! Full on flirting! It's creepy, dude. It's creepy on so many different levels. It's like Mr. Stark flirting with May..."

I can hear that Peter and I simultaneously shudder.

Ned just finally decides to ignore my brother, blurting, "Hey, off topic, sorry! But I just wanted to say, like, you're really pretty. And the blonde really suits you, it brings out your eyes - they look like..."

I raise my eyebrows in the dramatic pause that follows.

"The sea after a storm." Ned finally settles on an answer before rather cutely bubbling, "And I think they actually really would match this shirt I wanna wear for Homecoming,"

"Ooh wow... hah, thanks, buddy." I give an awkward yet amused laugh before confusedly cocking my head to the side, "But, uh, are you asking me to your homecoming, Ned?"

"Yea-,"

"No!" My little brother belts out and I hear a strange smacking sound over the phone, "Cut it out! This is weirding me out! She's my sister! You don't flirt with your best friend's sister! That's the first rule to a best-friendship! There's a no-no line! A boundary! A do not cross!" I raise an eyebrow at the still ranting boy, "Besides, she's way old-,"

"-Er than you!" I quickly substitute the rest of his sentence before I scoff, kind of feeling offended, "'Old', Peter, really?"

"She has a kid, Ned."

With a sigh, I nod and continue rocking the crib that May kindly bought for Maria with my foot, "It is a little weird, Ned."

"And she has a boyfriend."

"And now it's time to change the subject!" I quickly and panickedly announce, practically being able to hear the smirk in Peter's voice, "Anyway! So Honey, how's your day going? Are you making good choices?"

"Ha-ha-ha, you're very funny." Peter responds in a hushed and deadpanned voice, still on his way to the decathlon he decided to re-join.

"I like to think so." I smirk and lean back onto the bed, quietly growing serious, "But seriously, Pete, how's it going? Are you sure you guys don't want me to come down to D.C.? I don't like the idea of you going after these guys without backup, specifically me - as your backup."

Ever since Peter told me that those guys from the van - particularly one with a very strange spinal brace - showed up at his school, I've been on high alert. It's like I'm always feeling at any moment Michael Allan and his goon of psychos selling alien tech are just going to jump out of the woodwork and knock us off. I need to do something to prevent that from happening; I just can't figure out what yet. I don't even know if Michael Allan is his real name or even where to find him.

I just can't help but feel like something really, really bad is going to happen. And I'm not usually wrong when it comes to that. It's a gift or a curse, I can't really tell yet. But, anyway, the point is, the thought of Peter suddenly wanting to go to the decathlon freaks me out. Almost as much it freaks me out that Peter is lying to me.

I'm not stupid.

After all, why in the world did these guys just suddenly show up at his school? They don't know who he is! They would have absolutely no way of knowing! Besides, I feel like we're getting kind of good at telling when the other person is totally yanking the other's chain. But still, Peter was willing to lie to me to keep something hidden. So, it must be really bad.

"Nah, nah, it's okay, Sis," My little brother blows me off.

I give a groan, draping an arm over my face,  "Peter, I gotta say, I have a really bad feeling about-,"

A strange little buzz stops me in my tracks and Peter almost excitedly says, "Ah! Wait, wait, I got another call! I'll put you on three-way, hold on."

"How convenient." I mumble with an unimpressed glance down at the still snoozing Maria, her little pink lips puckered and her little brown brows furrowed like she's angry.

What a nugget.

"Hello?"

"Got a blip on my screen here." Happy's sudden voice makes me seal my lips very tightly closed, "You left New York?"

"Uh, yeah, no, it's just a school trip. It's nothing. Look, Happy, I gotta say, you tracking me without permission... is a complete violation of my privacy." I roll my eyes before Peter sharply whispers, "That's different."

"What's different?" Happy questions just as I whisper literally the same exact thing.

"Nothing. Look, it's just the Academic Decathlon. It's no big deal."

"Hey, hey!" Happy bites back, "I'll decide if it's no big deal."

I push up a hand and make a face at the bottom of the top buck.

And awkward pause follows before Happy concedes, "Sounds like no big deal, but remember, I'm watching you."

As soon as Happy hangs up, I give a scolding sigh, "That works for me too, Peter." I playfully squint my eyes up at the bed, "I am watching you."

A long silence follows before Peter scoffs, "You are so creepy, Short Stack."

I'm sitting at Peter's desk, google searching all potential Michael Allan's out there and jobs that would somehow involve potential alien tech when suddenly a light, happy voice literally chimes out of my thrusters, "Good evening, Lisa."

I jump back from where I've been sitting at Peter's desk, nearing falling out of his swivel chair and feeling like I'm almost gonna drop Maria as I stare at my hands with wide eyes. I mean, I'd run, but I can't run. The sound is literally coming out of my own hands.

"What the what?!" I breathe out, freaking out a little.

"I'm sorry to startle you, Lisa." The voice continues out of the metal disks imbedded in my palms, "I should introduce myself. I am the Artificial Intelligence that goes along with your brother's suit. Mr. Stark created me! I believe you know other such systems like JARVIS or FRIDAY."

My eyes squeeze closed as I still try to figure out just what the heck is going on and I make that very clear by asking, "What the heck is going on?"

"When designing the Spider-Man suit, Mr. Stark automatically attached the system ingrained in your repulsors to Peter's mask interface; that way, the siblings could stay connected." Suit Woman then proudly informs me, "He called it, 'THE BABYSITTER PROTOCOL."

"Wait, back up," my lips purse and I straighten, "He called it what?"

"THE BABYSITTER PROTOCOL." Suit Woman answers simply and sweetly.

"Typical." I just scoff and shake my head, "Wait, wait-,"

And then suddenly my thrusters are projecting two different videos in front of my face, and my eyes widen when I see that my brother's face from one hand and the top of what looks like a rooftop from the other. And this all leaves me all the more confused. What the heck...?

"Uh, Peter?"

"Lisa! And Maria?" Peter suddenly jumps back, looking all around to find the source of my voice, "What's going on?"

"That's what I was going to ask you!"

"Where would us like to take me tonight, Peter?" Suit Woman interrupts the two of us.

"I put a tracker on someone." Peter stutters out, putting his hands on his hips and giving an awkwardly confident nod, "He's a bad guy!"

"Wait, you did? What bad guy?"

"Yeah! That one who came to my school! I told you about him,"

"Tracker located." Suit Woman suddenly announces to the two of us and a map is displayed from one of my hands, "Plotting course to intercept target."

"Target?" I repeat with a funny face.

Peter's eyes find mine through the connection, "You're with me, right Lisa?"
    "Well, of course, but-,"

"Then as long as I make it back in time for decathlon, it's fine!" Peter shrugs casually before I watch him leap from the rooftop that he's standing on and then onto a moving truck down below.

I let out a tired, worried groan as I slide Maria to my shoulder and I guess we join along for the ride. Soon, Peter is in the middle of nowhere, far outside of the city with what looks like a shady gas station in the distance. I awkwardly try to web out my fingers, zooming in on the image of the gas station to find a van parked out in front of it, confirming Suit Woman's observation of there being three individuals camping out nearby.

"Why is their secret lair in a gas station?!" Peter whispers to us in disappointment, "That's so lame!"

"Agreed." I sigh in dismay as Peter jumps from his spot in the grass, bounds up the side of the station sign, and then perching on top.

Peter cocks his head to the side, staring at the van, "Hey, Suit Lady, what are they doing?"

"Do you want to hear what they're saying?" The AI offers.

"I can hear what they're saying?" Peter asks in excited disbelief before we simultaneously say, "Uh, yeah!"

"ACTIVATING ENHANCED RECONNAISSANCE MODE."

    "Dang, Dad..." I quietly mumble under my breath before I that these guys in front of us are put in inferred and then suddenly totally spilling their guts about all of the things they've stolen over the years since New York.

And still, Michael Allan's voice is not among them.

"Target inbound." One of the men suddenly say.

    "Whoa! They're in the middle of a heist. I could catch 'em all red-handed, Lisa!" Peter whispers, growing more and more excited, "This is awesome, right?! Okay, I'm gonna closer so I can see what's happening."

"Would you like me to engage ENHANCED COMBAT MODE?"

    "'Enhanced Combat Mode'?" And just as any sibling of mine would, he giddily agrees, "Yeah."

I watch as Peter slowly gets into position, raising a hand back and staying crouched on the sign.

"ACTIVATING INSTANT KILL!"

And then suddenly Peter's eyes turn red and narrowed and evil!

"No, no, no, no!" Peter quickly pulls back, his narrowed red eyes widening back to their normal size.

"Holy crap! Deactivate, deactivate!" I hurriedly call to Suit... Person.

"I don't want to kill anybody!" My brother eagerly agrees, totally way not ready for that.

"DEACTIVATING INSTANT KILL."

"God, Dad, what did you do?!" I drop back into the chair with a heavy breath before Peter suddenly jumps from the sign and then lands directly on his face, "Ooh!"

Peter groans, slowly dragging and picking his limbs up from the ground, "What the heck just happened? What was that?"

"You jumped off the sign and landed on your face." The AI responds so very matter-of-factly that I laugh.

When suddenly he starts shooting little bullet-like webs, Peter hisses and runs for safety, "Lisa, what's wrong with my web-shooters?"

"Uh," I squint and awkwardly try to slide through the information being projected from my hands, twisting my wrist this way and that, "It looks like the, uh, Rapid-Fire is the default for your Enhanced Combat Mode."

"Why would I need Rapid-Fire?!"

"You'd be surprised..." I mumble before narrowing my eyes and studying the list.

"Would you like to see more options? You have 576 possible web-shooter combinations."

"Wow, Mr. Stark really overdid it." Peter whispers under his breath, "Does he usually do this, Lees?"

"Yeah, he tends to. It's his thing." I give a faltering and fond smirk, patting Maria's back when she starts to gurgle.

"That one." Peter just randomly chooses one from the assortment.

"Great choice!" Suit Woman/Suit Lady, what have you, cheers, "Would you like me to set this as your new default?"

My brother shoots a web forward and suddenly electricity zaps from it, sparking the gas station roof and making Peter fiercely whisper, "What was that?!"

"Taser Webs."

"Taser Webs?!" Peter repeats as he climbs onto the roof, "I don't want Taser Webs!"
    "You seem to be very unfamiliar with your web-shooter settings. Would you like to run a refresher course?"

"No. Just-," Peter stumbles, "You choose, Lisa."
    "Me?!"

"Yeah!"

"Uh, uh," I fumble a little, stressed out at the moment as I try to look through the options being projected through my own thrusters.  As I try to hold her to my chest, Maria's hand suddenly flails out and then suddenly she's choosing something from the collection. "Oh! Crap!" I hiss and cringe down at Maria before quietly saying, "Uh, Maria just chose one."

My eyes narrow at the projection when I see a group of trucks suddenly coming down the nearby road, full of what I can only imagine to be Chitauri weapons and technology, and this crew's next target. Peter's mask lifts up and then a red outline forms around a winged figure suddenly swooping through the sky. And now that I can see him better, without being kicked in the face that is, I can see that it almost looks like... a Vulture? Not to mention the fact that he keeps stealing all of the technology like this.

"Oh," Peter breathes out, "Lisa, it's him."

"Mmhmm." I whisper back, my eyes wide and thoughtful, noticing a strange connection between the Vulture-like being's tech and Michael's.

When the figure lands on top of the back truck and then disappears into the roof of it, Peter slowly follows after him and then pokes at a strange pink box that seems to almost make the ceiling disappear, "Cool. It's like some kind of matter phase shifter."

Peter carefully backs up and when the figure with the wings reappears, he is holding a big black bag of what must be the stolen tech. Stranding straight and tall, Peter thrusts forward a web and then yanks the black bag of of the Vulture-like being's grasp.

"Hey, Big Bird! This doesn't belong to you!"

The Vulture suddenly turns around, its beady green eyes glaring at my little brother.

"Peter," I whisper worriedly, "You know that funny feeling I was telling you about?"

"Yeah!" He yells back over the screaming wind.

"This is why!"

"Oh, God." Peter mutters.

The man leaps back up into his suit, and now fully armed with his wings, he then flies straight towards my brother. Peter slides around, narrowly dodging him with a flip and then firing at him, only for two little webs to completely shoot past him, like silly string.

"Short Stack!" Peter exclaims, "What did Mar choose?!"

"I don't know!"

"Just set everything back to normal!" Peter yells, having a tug of war with the Vulture before the black bag suddenly snaps towards, spinning him around until he collapses into the hole of the truck and knocks the phasing rocks off point.

    Peter hits the bottom of the truck and before I yell a warning, he leaps back up to escape and then smacks the top of his head and then collapses in an unconscious heap.

After what feels like an eternity, Peter's foot eventually just barely twitches as he still lies sprawled out on the container bed with a quiet whirring sound in the distance.

"Peter! Peter? Hey, hey, can you hear me?"

"Ow, my head," is all of the response I get for the moment but it's enough to make me heave a sigh of relief.

    "You appear to have a mild concussion." Suit Person quietly informs the two of us.

I let out a quivering breath, feeling a little bit of panic for the boy that I promised myself I would look after, "Peter. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, my head just hurts a little. But hey, do you know where am I right now?"

I carefully lean up from where I've been lying on the bed with Maria on top of me, trying to search through the files hovering from my hands, "Ugh, not yet, Dork, I'm sorry, I'll keep looking. How about you, Suit Friend?"

"I'm not sure... The container walls are hindering my sensors."

"Wait a minute."

"What?" I worriedly hold my hand against Maria's soft back, "What is it?!"

"They must have hijacked the truck and taken me to their evil lair!" Peter gasps out as I slowly realize just where he actually is.

I make a face down at the holograph, "Uh, Peter,"

He ignores me, "Lisa, remember that I loved you guys, okay? And you have to name your next child after me. And tell Ned he can have my Red Raven poster."

"Peter-," I try again, raising an eyebrow.

"Okay, Suit Lady, we're gonna have to fight our way out of this one. Three, two, one!" Quickly counting down, Peter then bursts through the door of the container and I hear a loud bang. Suddenly I see Peter rolling across the floor and then leaping up with his fists raised.

I just rest my cheek on my fist, blinking slowly as my brother confusedly turns in a small circle at the warehouse filled with grey containers that surrounds him.

"What is this place?! Suit Lady, Lisa, where am I?"

"You're in the most secure facility on the eastern seaboard..." Suit Person finally can give Peter the answer I figured out, like, a minute ago, "The Damage Control Deep Storage Vault."

"No!" Peter groans, smacking his hands to his head, "Seriously?!"

"Well... at least you're safe now!" I offer weakly.

Peter groans and quickly tries to get out of the vault, only to fail, like a lot. It turns out Dad's security systems are really hard to break into, who knew? Eventually, my fifteen year old brother gets bored with failing and so he just ends up casually lounging around the storage vault, tiredly walking around, stretching out on a web hammock, and suddenly that vision of a brunette boy jump roping with a web wearing a yellow jacket makes so much sense.

"Hey, Suit Lady." Peter swings back and forth in his self-made hammock, "I kind of feel bad calling you... 'Suit Lady' and Lisa keeps calling you 'Suit Friend', you know? I think I should probably give you a name...  Like the girl, the redhead from the airport, only I don't know her name which could prove problematic..." Peter purses his lips and my eyes widen in surprise and, before I can even question it, he's suddenly coming up with another option, "Or Liz!"

"Liz?" I make a confused expression.

"No, no, no! God, that's-that's weird." Peter quickly blurts out, shaking whoever this 'Liz' is away as he continues to flop around the vault, "What about... Karen?"

"You can call me Karen, if you would like." The AI informs my little brother.

    As the clock keeps ticking, Peter decides to run through a refresher with Karen about all the things that his suit can do. Soon he's taking this whole course of different web shooter types to pass the time as I force myself not to fall asleep, trying really hard to stay awake for him. I'm not about to leave him all alone in some scary place all by himself, even if he has Karen.

Eventually, Peter's voice casually breaks into my thoughts, "Hey guys?"

"Hmm?" I tiredly respond from the bottom bunk in our shared room, still lying on my back with my arms folded behind my head.

Peter lies on his back with his own arms folded behind his head, just staring up at the ceiling, "Should I tell Liz that I'm Spider-Man?"

"Who is Liz?" Karen asks curiously.

"Uh, I was just about to ask the same thing, Karen." I carefully adjust Maria from my chest onto my pillow and roll onto my stomach, "Who's Liz, Petey?

    "Who's Liz?" Peter repeats sweetly, incredulously, "She's-she's the best. She's awesome. She's just a girl who goes to my school. And- yeah, I just-I really want to tell her, but it's kind of weird, you know, Lees? 'Hey, I'm Spider-Man'."

"Well, if ya come across as randomly as that, yeah, it would be a little weird." I give a quiet laugh, trying not to wake Maria up, "But, if you feel right about it, and you say it the right way, then why would it be weird?"

"What if she's expecting someone like-like your dad, Lees? What if she expects Tony Stark? Imagine how disappointed she'd be when she sees me!"

I smile small, leaning the side of my head on top of his bundled up sweatshirt, "Peter, take it from the girl who just met you for the first time, like, two/three months ago, I wasn't disappointed that you were you."

"And, if it were me," our AI buddy adds, "I wouldn't be disappointed at all."

With a sleepy smile, I rub my hands through my blonde hair, "I like you, Karen."

"I like you too, Miss Stark."

    "Thanks, guys. It's really nice to have people to talk to." Sighing, Peter drops his hand onto his stomach before curiously asking, "Hey, how long we been here anyways?"

"Thirty-seven minutes-,"

"What?!" My little brother jolts up, his voice so loud that it wakes Maria and gets her crying again.

"Agh Peter! I just got her asleep!"

"I'm sorry, but thirty-seven minutes?! That's insane. I cannot take this anymore! I got-I gotta get out of here."

Peter seamlessly flips over the side of the container he's been lying on, being the cute little showoff he is. I mean, I would compliment him on it but I'm a little too ticked to say so at the moment. I give a groan, slowly picking up Maria's mini wiggling body up and trying to bounce her to calm her down, or at least that's what Pepper used to do with me. I don't know. Most of what I'm doing with Maria is just google and guesswork, but at least it's working. And hey, that's what my dad did and I turned out just fine... ish.

But back in the storage vault, Peter walks back into the original container, peels off his jacket, and then begins to rummage through one of the robber's packs, "There's got to be something in here I can use. Okay, let's see... Nope."

I glance back at the hologram on my free hand and jump when I see a humming robotic face chilling in Peter's hand, "Ah! Geez! That's an Ultron head!"

"And that's awesome." Peter comments back before reaching in one more time and pulling out a Chitauri energy source, "Ah! Hey, it's like the glowy thing."

My eyes slowly widen as I carefully lay Maria in my lap, "What glowy thing?"

"Uh..." Peter awkwardly pokes at his thigh, "Yeah, about that."

I let out a sharp gasp, "Is this the thing you've been lying to me about, Peter Benjamin Parker?!"

"Hey, Lisa May Stark, don't full-name me!"

"I'll full-name you if I want to!" Maria starts crying again and I irritatedly fall back into the wall behind me, "Dang it, Peter, what glowy thing?"

"Okay, don't be mad." He sounds sort of patronizing as he talks, "t's like this alien purple rock thingy? I found it when those guys in the van dropped it."

My eyes suddenly (almost) pop out of my head, "Oh God, Peter! That glowy thing is from 2012, dude! It's a Chitauri energy core!"

"Also, it's explosive." Karen so helpfully adds in.

"Oh! And it's explosive!" I smack my palm against my forehead.

    "You mean, we've been carrying around a bomb?!"

"It would require radiation to transform it into an explosive state." Karen responds nonchalantly.

"No, no, no." Panic goes into a panic, "Hey! Please! Please, somebody let me out! Hey! Karen, Lees, you have to help me override that time lock. Okay, Karen, lower the voltage and run it."

As the trials just keep failing, I'm still left confused about why Peter is rushing around, "Pete, why are you panicking?! Where is the glowy thing?"

"It's with Ned!" Peter shouts back desperately, "Ned has it! And he's going to the decathlon! If it goes off, they're all dead!"

"Oh God!" I drag my hands through my hair and struggle out of the bed towards his desk, really wishing I was in DC right now, "Okay, okay, you work on your end and I'll work on mine."
    By the time we make it to Trial 247, the massive concrete vault doors slowly and finally peel apart and there's a bright dawn line splintering through the bedroom window. I swivel around in the chair and hold up my hands to see Peter crawl through the open doors and then has Karen guide him through sprinting across the city of DC, the both of us trying to call Ned and getting pretty much radio silence until finally... my very favorite yodeling ringtone fills our ears.

Finally in the city, Peter leaps down on top of a bus and yanks out his phone, "Oh, Ned, you're alive!"

"Ned!" I happily call through Peter's mask, "Thank God! Where's the core?!

    "Lisa?" Ned sounds confused before worriedly going on, "Peter, are you okay?"

"Where's the glowy thing? The glowy thing?!"

"Don't worry, it's safe. It's in my backpack."

    "No, Ned, listen, the glowy thing is dangerous."

    "It's very dangerous, Ned!" I add in, but the conversation between us just keeps going on, and Ned just really isn't actually listening.

"Peter, is that you?" I swallow my words as a girl's voice suddenly interrupts me, apparently having stolen the phone from Ned.

"Oh! Hey, Liz!" Peter's voice significantly grows less panicked and more.... uh, flirty?

"Is that the Liz?" I whisper quietly over the line, sort of taken aback and kind of curious at actually hearing the voice of the girl my brother has a crush on.

"Who's that?" The girl, or Liz I guess, questions in confusion.

"Uh, no one!"

"Hey..." I quietly mumble, offensively.

"Sorry!" Peter calls to me before saying, "But, please Liz, put Ned back on the phone."

"You should tell her how you feel." Karen suddenly contributes to the conversation.

"Karen!" I whisper down at my thrusters, shaking my head at the AI's bad romantic advice, "Not the time."

"You flake!" Liz scolds my brother, "You are so lucky we won. You know, I want to be mad, but I'm more worried. Like, what is going on with you?"

    "Liz, I have to talk to Ned. It's really important! There's something in Ned's backpack. It's dangerous. Don't let it go through an X-ray-," the phone suddenly cuts out and Peter's voice grows more strained, "Liz? Liz! No!"

"Peter, you're almost at the monument, but you're not going to have much time since the core's been exposed!" And nearly as soon as I say that, the top of the white monument suddenly cracks apart and dust and rock falls from above from what I can see through Peter's visuals.

"No, no, no!" Peter leaps over to the base of the monument, "Karen, what's going on up there?!"

"The Chitauri core has detonated... and caused severe structural damage to the elevator."

Suddenly my feed is cutting out and I can barely even hear what Peter and Karen are saying, something about 'completely failing' and 'imminent mortal danger' and 'catastrophic failure'. And no matter how many times I call his name, my little brother still doesn't answer and I panickedly stand, shaking my hands and scrolling through options to try to figure out just what's going on.

"Miss Stark," Karen's voice finally speaks up, sounding clear despite the static behind her.

"Oh, thank God, Karen!" I heave a sigh of relief, "Where's Peter? What's happening?!"

"I would suggest turning on the news - Channel 12."

    I spin around on Peter's chair and scrabble to pick up Peter's new laptop, dropping it onto the mattress and pulling up the news channel Karen told me to. And then, before my very eyes,  Peter Benjamin Parker is standing near the ledge of the highest window on top of the monument. Letting out a small squeak, my knees go a bit weak and I slowly sink to the ground as I watch him shoo a few pigeons away.

"Karen."

"Yes, Miss Stark?"

"Can you override whatever block Peter put on my end of the comm link to protect me from hearing whatever's going on?"

"I thought you would never ask!"

A few blinks later, the hologram beams out of my thrusters once more and I can hear Peter's heavy breathing so I hurriedly speak up, "Peter! Hey, are you alright?!" My brows furrow and my voice quickly grows accusational, "Hey, you locked me out!"

"I don't have a choice!" The boy suddenly defends himself before I can even have the chance to go on.

My hands are shaking and a pit of dread fills my stomach because I know he's right, "I know. I support you."

"Thanks, Sis." Peter slowly lets out a deep breath, staring down at the green grass a long way down.

"What's wrong?" Karen peeps, "You've reached the southwest window. Why are you hesitating?"

"It's fine. I've just... never been this high before."

"You have also not reinstalled your parachute... so a fall from this height would most likely be lethal."

"Ah, perfect." Peter and I whisper at the same time before I sigh, "You got this, Peter."

Peter is still trying to break the bullet-proof window that leads into the monument when suddenly, with a loud gust of wind, a police helicopter flies around him with guns trained on his back, "This is D.C. Metro Police. Identify yourself!"

"Oh God..." I whisper, pushing my mouth into my hands.

    "My friends are in there! My friends are in there!" Peter cries out, "Stop!"

As the police continue shouting, I quickly spout off ideas, "Peter, if you get to the top of the monument and latch around, then, maybe, if you do it right, you-,"

Peter quickly finishes along with me, "Could launch from under the helicopter and then the force will smash through the glass!"

"Makes sense right?"

"In theory!" Peter hurriedly scale sup towards the tip of the monument and, just before he jumps, I bite my lip and Peter breathily sings out, "Oh, I'm gonna die."

"Please don't die!" I panic.

And with a grunt, Peter leaps from the tip of the monument, webs and flips around the helicopter, and then flies foot-first directly through the window. And soon, after a few more near death experiences and who I'm guessing is Liz almost plummeting to her death, Peter manages to get everyone onto solid-ish ground. And even though I'm relatively sure I've lost like ten years of life from stress, everyone there all just regard him as they should, with wide and amazed eyes.

And Spider-Man hangs upside down from the top of the elevator shaft, suddenly putting on some janky Queens accent to ask, "So, uh, is everyone okay?"

    Liz stands across from him, gasping deeply and staring at my little brother with thankful eyes.

"This is your chance, Peter." Karen whispers quietly, "Kiss her."

Snapping out of whatever moment I was allowing my brother, I pull a face at the AI, "What? Karen, ew! No! Peter, please don't make me witness that!"

But my little brother doesn't respond, he just continues to stare at Liz with dazed eyes before suddenly the web holding him there snaps and then, with a surprised grunt, he goes (safely) plummeting back down into the dust.

I let out a loud groan and fall back onto the bed, looking over at Maria's blue eyes as she lies across from me, "Retirement is going to kill me, Noodle."

♕♕♕

And so, when the night arrives and Midtown Tech's yellow school bus arrives with it, I pretty much have to physically restrain myself from running along with May over to Peter as he slowly climbs off his school bus.

"Peter?" Our aunt worriedly calls out, hurrying over to him and quickly pulling him into a tight hug, "Come here, come here."

I stand back by the station wagon that is my aunt's car, holding Maria close to my chest and gently bouncing her as I try to stay away from the large clusters of families waiting for their kids or siblings. My blonde hair falls over my shoulders and a hat stays planted on my head, but even with my disguise, I can't fool myself enough to think that there aren't tears in my eyes as I think about how I could've lost him today. I promised to protect him and then I had to watch from the sidelines as he put himself in harm's way. And I'm not sure if I can risk that again.

I'm not sure I can risk staying out of the fight like this anymore.

When Peter slowly pulls himself away from May, his brown eyes flick around towards their car and I give a small and quick wave once our eyes meet. He gives a small and faltering smile, slowly stepping with May in our direction. With a heavy breath, Petr tightens his hands on his backpack and then moves to jog across the parking lot towards me. With an ache bursting in the back of my head, I quickly slide from around the front of the car and jog to meet him. I barely even take five steps before Peter quickly wraps his arms around me and Maria as I wrap an arm around his back.

"You scared the crap out of me, Peter," I let out a quiet sigh of relief, squeezing my eyes closed and resting my forehead on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, Lees," Peter gives a quiet sigh, squeezing me tighter, "I'm really sorry."

I pull back after a few moments and Peter plants a kiss on Maria's forehead before tossling her curls.

May slowly comes up behind us, resting her hands on our shoulders, "You ready to go home?"

Peter and I slowly and tiredly smile at each other, "Yeah... We're ready."

Whew! That was super long so I'm sorry if you don't like long chapters but it just had to be that way! What did you think? I love these two siblings with my whole heart and lil Maria is a nugget! What was your favorite part? Do you think Lisa is gonna get back in the game? How about Michael? Where's he? How do you think Peter is going to react to that? Again, sorry for the delay and sorry that there were no gifs in this chapter, it's super late and I need to go to sleep. I appreciate you all and your patience! I'm super busy and that won't stop anytime soon, unfortunately.

Thoughts? Next chapter is the ferry scene!

A conversation I really wanted to include but could not:

I don't know. Evil lair?"

"They have a lair?"

"A gang with alien guns run by a guy with wings? Yeah. They have a lair."

"It's true!" I chirp and nod, "Every time I've been kidnapped, I've noticed that the bad guys always had a evil lair."

"Exactly!" Peter points at me with a nod, putting his hands on his sides.

"Awesome." Ned oozes, sounding so very impressed.