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"Hello?"

"Morning, sunshine."

Andi rolled her eyes at the sound of Tony's voice and looked at the clock on her bedside table. It was four in the morning, which meant it was too early for him to be calling her, at least in her own opinion. She had school in about four hours and needed all the sleep she could get, so him calling at four in the morning was only interrupting her sleep cycle. She wasn't even sure why he was calling, but she figured she would find out within the next few minutes or so.

"May I ask why you're calling me at four o'clock in the morning?" Andi grumbled.

"I was just calling to see what you and your little pals got into last night," Tony said to her. "Did you have a good night?

"Seriously?"

"Heard you went to a house party in the suburbs," Tony chuckled, further irritating the blonde. Each minute he spent wasting time asking about her night, she could've been fast asleep preparing for the long day at school she knew she had ahead of her. "I haven't been to one of those in years."

Andi ran a hand through her hair and sat up in bed. "Is this really the only reason why you called me, Tony? To ask me about my nightly teenage ventures? Because I can guarantee you this is not the conversation to have at four in the morning."

"And I can guarantee you it is," Tony spoke with a serious tone. "Tell me what happened after you left the party last night, Andi. What happened to Peter?"

"I dunno," Andi sighed. "Our friend found out about his Spider-Man persona and kind of revealed that Peter knew Spider-Man, so the party was the place the two were going to go for compensation. He was in his suit before I left and was getting ready to go inside and show up like he planned, so I'm assuming that's what happened."

Tony chuckled. "Well, you're wrong."

"It was an assumption," Andi reminded him. "I never claimed to be right."

"Let me just tell you this," Tony started. "Peter almost died last night."

"What?" A wave of fear spread through the entirety of Andi's body. Part of her wanted to believe it was solely due to the fact that he'd almost gotten himself killed under her watch, but the other part of her knew it was due to her fear of losing Peter. He'd become such a huge part of her life in the few months she'd known him, and to lose him would just hurt.

"Yeah, he was trying to stop a few mercenaries selling weapons and found himself falling a thousand feet into a lake," Tony explained to her. "If I hadn't been able to locate him in time, he would've drowned, and that would've been on you."

"Tony, I—"

"You're supposed to be watching over him, Andi," Tony chastised her. "Watching over him means that you don't let him get himself into these types of situations. There are people who actually handle this sort of thing."

"So what are you going to do about it?" Andi asked.

"Don't worry about it," Tony said to her. "All you need to worry about is taking care of the kid."

"Fine."

Andi hung up the phone without another word to Tony and threw her phone back onto her nightstand. She grabbed her comforter and pulled it over her head, burying herself back into her mattress. She only had a few more hours left of sleep, and a few more hours left until she was back to work protecting the boy she didn't seem to be doing a good job in protecting.

Andi sighed as she walked through the doors of Midtown. She was tired, as per usual, and would've preferred to stay back at the tower, but she had to talk to Peter about what happened after she left the party the previous night. It wasn't only because of Tony's early morning phone call, but because of her own feelings. She felt guilty knowing that he almost died while under her watch. Andi wished she could rewind the clock and stay at the party instead of leaving. That way she would've been there for Peter when he needed her.

Peter was at his locker when Andi finally approached him. She smiled at him, a gesture in which he returned, and moved to lean against the vacant lockers at his side.

"So, care to tell me how things went last night?"

Peter chuckled and shut his locker. "Not very well, I'll tell you that."

"What happened?" Andi questioned him, though she was already aware of the answer. "Were Flash and Liz not very excited to see Spider-Man?"

"They never saw Spider-Man."

The two began walking down the hall towards class.

"What? Why?"

"I kind of got into some trouble," Peter answered her. "I found the guys who were selling the weapons responsible for what happened to Delmar's and they pretty much tried to kill me. If it wasn't for Mr. Stark and his self-operating Iron Man sentries, I'd probably be at the bottom of a lake right now."

The thought and the visualization Peter placed into her mind only sent a shudder through Andi's body. "First of all, I'm really sorry that happened to you, and second of all, please never bring up the ideation of your death again. The thought of it scares me to death."

"What, is someone scared to lose me?" Peter teased her.

"Yes, actually, someone is scared to lose you," Andi said to him. "But did you find anything?"

"Yeah," Peter nodded. "I found a piece of one of the weapons they dropped, and in wood-shop I'm gonna try to figure out what I can about it, y'know, how it works and stuff like that. I would appreciate it if you would join me, because I could really use your help. You're quite intelligent in the field of mechanics and such things."

Andi smirked and walked into first period with Peter. "Someone pays quite a bit of attention to me."

Peter chuckled and shook his head. "It's hard not to, Andi, it's really hard."

Andi only smiled at him and sat down in her seat to wait for class to begin.

Soon enough, wood-shop rolled around, and Andi wasn't sure how thrilled she was about what Peter was getting himself into. She could only stand by and watch as he beat the strange contraption with a hammer in order to free the bright purple gem-like object shining from the inside.

Andi eyed the strange object and reached out to grab it until Ned's voice halted her actions.

"Hey, thanks for bailing on me," he said to Peter.

"Yeah, well, something came up," Peter informed him, gesturing down to the bright object on the table.

Ned's eyes brightened at the sight. "Woah, what is that?"

"I dunno," Peter struggled to break the surrounding metal. "Some guy tried to vaporize me with it."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"Awesome."

Both Peter and Andi looked at Ned with raised brows, and it was then he realized his mistake.

"I mean, not awesome," Ned chuckled nervously. "Totally uncool of that guy."

Peter only continued trying to break the metal around the bright object, something of which confused Andi. She believed she could've pulled the weapon apart with ease, so she wondered why he couldn't.

"If you're, like, this super-spider, why can't you just break the metal apart with your hands?" Andi questioned him. "Or is that not how your powers work?"

Peter shrugged and hit it again. "It's a matter of exposure, I guess. I don't need to risk someone seeing me break apart metal with my bare hands. That would turn quite a few heads and that's not something I need at the moment."

"Fair point," Andi agreed.

"But look," Peter told Andi and Ned. "I think it's a power source."

"Yeah, but it's connected to all those microprocessors," Ned told him. "That's an inductive charging plate, it's what I use to charge my toothbrush."

"You have a chargeable toothbrush?" Andi snorted back her laughter.

Ned sent a sarcastic grin her way and nodded his head. "The best of us do, Andi, so I can understand why you wouldn't know anything about it."

"Bite me, Leeds."

"You first."

"Can you both shut up for a minute?" Peter sighed and glanced between his two best friends. "Whoever's making these weapons are combining alien tech with ours and you're worried about a toothbrush."

"I was curious," Andi defended herself.

Peter only shook his head at the blonde, fighting the smile pulling at the corner of his lips.

"That is literally the coolest sentence anyone has ever said."

"What?" Peter raised a brow. "'I was curious' or my sentence about alien tech."

"The sentence about alien tech, duh," Ned confirmed. "I just want to take a moment to thank you for letting me be a part of your journey into this amazing—"

Ned was cut off by the loud sound of Peter striking the weapon with his hammer. The three of them shied away from the loudness and the sight of the central power source flying off of the table. They turned their heads towards the teacher in order to see if he'd seen anything, but he was a lot more focused on the crossword puzzle in his hands rather than the students in his class.

"Keep your fingers clear of the blades," was the only thing to come from his mouth.

Ned, Peter, and Andi turned back to their project.

"I gotta figure out what this is and who makes it," Peter said to the two of them.

"Why don't we go to the lab after class and run a few tests?" Andi suggested.

"Let's do it."

Peter held his hands out to the two, and together they performed their top secret handshake. The idea of a secret handshake was so silly to Andi, but Peter and Ned insisted she learn for the sake of moments such as they one they just recently found themselves in. Silly or not, however, their little handshake made Andi feel as if she belonged with the two of them. They were her best friends, let alone the only friends she'd ever known, so something as little as a handshake between the three of them was something she cherished.

After class ended and after school ended, the three of them made their way down the empty hallway toward the science lab.

"First, we put the glowy thing in the mass spectrometer," Ned said to Peter and Andi.

"We gotta come up with a better name than glowy thing," Peter chuckled.

"The glowy thing is the power source," Andi reminded the two of them.

"'Power source' isn't a cool name, though," Ned scoffed.

"And neither is 'glowy thing.'"

"Then call it Matilda," Andi suggested.

The boys looked at her with raised brows.

"What the hell is Matilda?" Peter asked her.

"Have you really never seen Matilda?" Andi questioned him in disbelief. "It's only the best movie of the 90's, Peter."

"What does Matilda have to do with the glowy thing?" Ned asked.

Andi shrugged. "I dunno, maybe because Matilda had powers that were out of this world, just like the glowy thing does."

Peter stopped to look at Andi. "Matilda shares her powers with Scarlet Witch."

"And have you seen Scarlet Witch in action?"

"Yes, actually."

"Then you know she's a freakin' badass," Andi said to him. "She's a cosmic queen, just like Matilda, so why not name the glowy thing Matilda."

Peter glanced over at Ned. "She has a point," he chuckled.

"Of course she does," Ned sighed and shook his head. "Matilda it is, I guess."

As the three continued walking down the hallway, two men rounded the corner at the end of the hallway. Upon realization of who they were, Peter jumped away from Ned and Andi, much to their confusion.

"C'mon," Peter gestured the two over to him.

The two walked over to stand by him, and he peeked around the corner. They were still unaware of why he was being so jumpy, but they figured he would tell them within the next couple of moments.

"That's one of the guys that tried to kill me," Peter told Ned and Andi.

"What?"

"Why are you being jumpy about it?" Andi asked. "It isn't like they saw you with your mask covering your face."

"This might be true."

"We gotta get outta here," Ned suggested.

"No, I'm gonna follow them," Peter said. "They can lead me to the guy that dropped me in the lake."

"Someone dropped you in a lake?" Ned asked in disbelief. Andi had totally forgotten he didn't have the whole story, nor did he have Tony Stark calling him at four in the morning to explain the story to him.

"Yeah, it was not good."

"Peter," Andi said as he started around the corner.

"No, Andi, you guys stay here."

Neither of them could respond. Peter took off around the corner while the two stood and waited on him. Andi only wished she could do something to help him to prevent him from getting hurt, but she couldn't. Instead, all she could do was stand and wonder about the strange boy playing chess on the other side of the window.