CHAPTER ELEVEN
Keep Your Enemies Close

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OBVIOUSLY, WHAT HAD OCCURRED in the Washington Monument had rattled the entire Academic Decathlon team. The juxtaposition between winning the competition and nearly dying mere hours later was wild, and everyone, even the most nonchalant of the bunch, had been severely shaken. Knowing that they'd nearly become pancakes at the bottom of a historical obelisk wasn't exactly a pleasant thought, and, with that at the back of their minds, it would be impossible to proceed with the trip like nothing was wrong.

Because of this, while the injured were patched up and the team was interviewed—Cecelia was sure she'd had a microphone shoved in her face at some point, but she honestly didn't remember a single thing she said—phone calls were made, and a school bus was arranged to take them home at three pm sharp.

Cecelia sat on a bench in the hotel lobby with Alex, balancing her phone precariously on her lap. As soon as the news had broken about the elevator malfunction on the Washington Monument, their parents had been calling non-stop, wanting to know if they were okay. Neither of them had been able to respond for an hour—Alex had to get a neat row of stitches in his arm, while Cecelia had to take another Xanax to calm down—which led to, in the end, a combined total of seven hundred and forty-six missed calls.

Fortunately, they'd finally gotten a chance to call back. On the other end of the phone, the entire family had gathered—including Eva and Jules, whose voices blared out of the speakers. Even so, the hotel lobby was loud enough that it barely dented the atmosphere.

"Are you sure you're all right?" Mom asked for the fortieth time. "No broken bones? No concussions? Did either of you hit your head?"

"We're fine," Alex reassured. "The worst thing that happened was when I elbowed Cecelia in the neck."

Cecelia rubbed at it bitterly. It didn't really hurt anymore, but, despite the circumstances, she still overplayed it. "Zero out of ten, wouldn't recommend."

"And you got glass in your arm!" Mom reminded. "Did those medics know what they were doing? Are you sure they did a decent job? Alex, when you get home, we are going straight into a walk-in clinic to make sure everything's okay."

"That's really not necessary." Alex scrubbed a hand over his face. Since he'd recently started growing facial hair there—though it was no more than fuzz, so far—doing that had become a habit. "They were trained professionals, Mom. Not random people off the street."

"Still, I really think you should—"

Dad interrupted her. "He doesn't need to go to the walk-in, honey. What he needs—what they both need—is ice cream, lots of cable TV, and sleep. And how about a family game night later, huh? We haven't done that in ages, and I think it would be good to spend some time together, all six of us."

"Okay." Cecelia couldn't see Mom, but by the tone of her voice alone, she could tell she was wilting. "That is a good idea."

"Can I get ice cream too, Dad?" Jules asked. Cecelia imagined him bouncing on the couch eagerly. Not even the near-death experience of his siblings managed to completely quell his energy. "And watch TV? I want to watch Cars!"

"We're not watching Cars," said Alex, crossing his arms.

"It's Lia and Alex's choice, not yours," Mom chastised. "They just went through a lot today, so they get to pick the movie. We can watch Cars another time."

"No fair! Their day couldn't have been that bad. They got to meet Spider-Man! Again! And they were on TV! They're gonna be famous now!"

"Spider-Man's really not all he's cracked up to be," said Cecelia.

"He was weird," Alex admitted. "I mean, he saved our lives, so I guess I can't be that mad, but... yeah. He was weird. Also, I really appreciate your concern about us, Jules. I'm glad to know you care so much."

"What?" Jules protested. "It's not like you actually died."

Then he cried out in pain, as if being shoved away, and Eva spoke. "Well, I'm glad you're all right."

"Eva! Don't hit your brother," Dad scolded.

"It wasn't hard. He's just being a big baby."

"Hey!" Jules cried.

"When is the bus picking you two up?" Mom asked, trying to steer them back on track. "I want you home as soon as possible."

"Half an hour," Cecelia responded. "They're just giving us a little time to gather our shit—I mean, our stuff. We're gonna stop for a bathroom break halfway through the trip, but we're not buying anything this time. The ride should be faster."

"Good." Mom's sigh of relief came whooshing through the phone. "We'll be there to pick you up, obviously. Oh, my poor babies. You're never leaving my sight again."

"Not even to go to the bathroom?" Jules giggled.

Eva scoffed. "You are so immature."

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not—"

"Enough of that," Dad snapped. "Of course, they can go to the bathroom alone. Mom's just exaggerating. And Eva, be nicer to Jules or I'm going to start following your Instagram."

Eva's gasp of horror was so close to the mic that it muffled it slightly. "You wouldn't dare!"

"You don't know what I would do, Eva Cortes-Olivier."

"Well, it's nice to see that a near-death experience hasn't changed things," Alex muttered. Cecelia very nearly snorted.

"Call us back once you get on the bus," Mom instructed. "And once you're halfway there. And when you're five minutes from the school. And when—"

"Mom!" Cecelia and Alex protested.

"Okay, okay, fine. That might be overkill. But I want regular texts, okay? You really scared me today, and I need to know that you're all right. I love you both so much, and I am so proud of you. You were really brave in there."

Yeah. Brave. Like Cecelia hadn't been close to puking her guts up. Again.

"I love you, my monkeys," Dad added. "Don't give your old man a scare like that again."

No promises, Cecelia thought.

"Bye, Alex! Bye, Cee!" Eva chirped. "I'll change your sheets for you, Cecelia!"

The slightest smile grew on Cecelia's face. "Thanks, Eva."

"See you later!" Jules piped up. "Maybe just... think about the movie again. Talking cars are pretty cool, you know, and the plot—"

"Goodbye." Cecelia hung up before Jules could continue his rant about the so-called Pixar 'classic'. She turned down the volume on her phone and was just moving to slip it in her pocket when it chimed with another series of texts. These were from Uncle.

Oblivious to the widening of his sister's eyes, Alex leaned back in his seat. "So, do you think Jules was worried about us?"

"Probably not," Cecelia muttered, only half-listening. She opened the texts from Uncle and read them in their entirety.

UNCLE: Heard about what happened today. I honestly have to say that I'm disappointed, Cecelia. I thought I taught you better.

UNCLE: Call me when you're able. I want you to come for a few hours tomorrow to work on the tech we secured and talk about your interaction with Spider-Man. We've got a big deal coming up, and I don't want him interfering with us again.

Cecelia blew out a long, slow, breath. Thanks for your concern, Uncle. I'm really glad you were so worried about my safety.

He was worse than Jules. And Jules was an eight-year-old boy.

"What are you looking at?" Alex asked, snapping Cecelia out of her reverie. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

"Nothing." Cecelia quickly went to her phone's home screen. It was a picture of her, Christine, and Alex, all doing peace signs in front of the Empire State Building. "Just... that Instagram account Eva is obsessed with. Spidermansightings, remember?"

"Oh, shit. Do you think we're gonna get a feature?" Alex opened his own phone. "You know, that would be just my luck. The one time I get featured on an account with twenty-thousand followers is because I almost died."

His tone was nonchalant, but it was clear it was a front. Glimmering in his eyes were remnants of the fear he'd felt earlier, the resignation that had come when the elevator was in free-fall. Or maybe he just hadn't processed all of his emotions yet.

Cecelia sure hadn't. After she'd been rescued, they'd all combined together in a blob of hysteria, but as soon as she'd reached the hotel again, everything had shut down. Her brain was already moving on, thinking about the upcoming Homecoming and the inevitable Physics test that Mrs. Warren would spring on them next week. It would probably all come again later, perhaps when she was in bed, but for now, it was as if a flip had been switched in her brain. Everything had been turned right off.

"The Monument's on there, but we aren't," she replied wearily. She'd actually gone on the account back in her room, seeing if it had anything that could help her identify the vigilante. There hadn't been; the only new picture was a slightly blurred shot of him sprinting across a road.

"Damn. Well, I'll get there someday."

Cecelia tipped her head back and closed her eyes. Thank Creator she would be home soon. She wanted nothing more than to pull on a pair of clean pajamas, climb into her freshly made bed, and sleep until today became nothing but a memory.

A nudge from Alex brought her back into reality. "Oh, my God," he said. "Look who finally came back."

"Huh?" Cecelia opened her eyes and followed her brother's line of sight. When she realized what he was looking at, her face contorted into a scowl. For there, with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie and a sheepish expression on his face, was Peter Parker, speaking to an exasperated Mr. Harrington. She couldn't hear their conversation from all the way over here, but it was obvious by the facial expressions of both parties that it was not a pleasant one. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Lucky him, skipping out on the near-death," Alex said, crossing his arms.

Cecelia was about to reply with her sarcastic assent to that when something in her brain fired off. It was the same lightbulb that flickered on whenever she got a new idea for a project, or finally figured out how certain pieces of technology fit together. It was the pinging of revelation without the actual revelation. Because she had no idea what caused it. Alex had said something, and she'd been reminded of something... something about Spider-Man. Something... something about the night of the party?

She rubbed her head as if the gesture could bring the thought to the surface of her mind. Unfortunately, it seemed to have fully dissipated, packing itself into a filing cabinet and locking its drawer. A disappointed sigh escaped her, and she refocused her energy on staring down Peter Parker. Where the hell had he been?

Alex stood up and stretched, his back popping. "I'm gonna hit the vending machines. You want anything? A Pepsi?"

"I'm good," Cecelia responded.

"Really? I'll pay, for once."

"I'm good."

"Your loss." Alex started to make his way across the lobby towards the glowing vending machines. Cecelia remained seated; eyes locked on Peter. Maybe it was creepy, staring at him like this, but, really, he had a lot of explaining to do. Where could he have possibly gone that was so important it warranted skipping Nationals? Why had he rejoined the team if he was just going to flake out, anyway?

If she had a Sticky Note—and was in Mrs. Warren's class—she would have sent him a questioning message. But she wasn't in Mrs. Warren's class, and she didn't have her stationary, so she settled for staring. There was something going on with Peter, something bigger than the Stark Internship.

And Cecelia Olivier was going to figure it out.

WHEN CECELIA FINALLY arrived back in NYC, several things happened.

1) she had to face Mom and Dad's embraces, both of which were bone-crushing and practically soul-sucking. Mom latched onto her and Alex like a koala, proclaiming she'd never let go, and it took five long minutes of coaxing from Dad before she reluctantly loosened her grip. As someone who still was uncomfortable with embraces, this was practically Cecelia's nightmare, even if she knew Mom was just trying to show that she cared.

2) The Olivier family headed home, where—true to the promises of their phone call—they curled up on the couch together and watched a movie. To Jules's disappointment, it wasn't Cars. Instead, they chose Spirited Away, which had been Cecelia's favourite as a child and, if she were honest, probably still was now. Somehow, the wacky adventures of a ten-year-old girl fighting to get her pig parents turned back into humans were a comfort to Cecelia. Perhaps because it was so far removed from reality.

("When I was a kid, I used to have a crush on him," Cecelia said of Haku, the river spirit.

"Isn't he, like, twelve?" Alex asked.

"Yeah. I was seven. Now Howl's my guy."

Eva sighed dreamily. "Howl Jenkins. I think I'd eat my own foot for Howl Jenkins."

"I'd chew off both my arms."

"I'd scoop out my eyeballs and eat them with chopsticks."

"You guys are weird," said Jules.

3) Uncle texted Cecelia again. This one was slightly nicer than the one he'd sent back at the hotel.

UNCLE: I'm sorry if I was harsh with you earlier. I just want you to be the best you can be. I'll pick you up tomorrow at one o'clock. Make some excuse to your parents.

4) Despite her efforts to forget the elevator incident, Cecelia's brain seemed insistent on reminding her of it. This was clear as ever when she woke up screaming in the middle of the night after a nasty nightmare where there was no Spider-Man to rescue her when she fell. She shut her mouth abruptly, sure that someone who'd gone on countless missions and faced dangerous people in the past shouldn't be getting freaked out over a dream, but the damage had been done. Eva had woken up, threw a pillow and proceeded to grump about her 'beauty rest'. Of course, two minutes later, she'd already fallen asleep.

Cecelia stayed up for the rest of the night.

Because of her shitty sleep schedule, she was practically dead on her feet when morning finally arrived, which wasn't ideal on a workshop day. Fortunately, it wasn't like Mom and Dad asked her to do much, anyway. Dad made pancakes for breakfast—chocolate chip pancakes, which were practically heaven in Cecelia's mouth—and she ate while scrolling numbly through Instagram, watching the freak out about what happened yesterday. Flash, of course, had added about a hundred stories (don't ask Cecelia why she followed him. She didn't know. His username was spideyno1fan_, for Creator's sake). Liz posted a long message about the Decathlon win and how scary the Monument experience had been. Charles simply uploaded a forty-second video of him screaming.

Even Christine had contributed. Right after the group photo of the Decathlon team—the calm before the storm—was a quote about living in the moment. It was cheesy as hell, but there was a little bit of truth in it, too. They all could have died yesterday.

Cecelia kept thinking that, over and over, and it still didn't sink in.

"Holy shit, I just got, like, thirty new followers," Alex said. He was sitting on one chair at the table, his feet propped up on the other. "That's a record for my account. You think I could become Instagram famous now?"

"No," Cecelia responded. Her own account was private, but apparently, the Spider-Man incident was enough to make people search her out. There were five requests in her notifications. "You have three-hundred-forty-two followers, Al, not twenty-thousand."

"Ouch."

"Eva has more followers than you. Jules has more followers than you."

"Well, in my defense, Jules gets most of them from his YouTube channel."

Cecelia rolled her eyes. Jules Playz Games was something she didn't want to think about until she had to. After all, his videos were the reasons he always wanted to borrow her iPad. She had modded Minecraft on there.

She clicked on her follower requests, meaning to delete them all. The first three were what she expected: a pornbot that she reported for good measure, an Elon Musk fan page, and an 'up and coming photographer.' But when she got to the fourth request, she paused. Then she clicked on the account.

peter_parker

Four posts, fifty-six followers. His bio was short and sweet: Midtown School of Science and Technology. Intern at @starkindustries. May 25th, 1977—the beginning of the best film franchise ever.

Cecelia sighed. Then she accepted his follower request, upping her follower account from twenty-nine to thirty. For good measure, she followed him back. Maybe this would be where she figured out what the hell he was up to.

She put her phone down and took a long, hot shower, trying to wake up. She combed her hair and pulled it back into a braid, letting it trail down her back. She washed her face, then slathered lavender-scented hand lotion all over it. She brushed her teeth and gargled mouthwash. Everything she normally did. As if what had happened in the elevator had happened on TV instead of to her. As if it had happened in a dream. 

The rest of the morning was spent finishing up homework (not that she'd be expected to hand it in after what had just happened) and watching movies with Alex, Jules, and Eva. They ended up going on a Studio Ghibli binge; after Spirited Away last night, they watched Kiki's Delivery Service and Howl's Moving Castle. Before she knew it, it was half-past twelve, which meant there was only half an hour before Uncle would be picking her up.

Considering the likelihood of Mom and Dad turning down the idea of an internship day not even twenty-four hours after nearly dying, Cecelia didn't tell them that it was Uncle who was picking her up. Instead, she claimed that Christine had asked her to come over for a few hours—girls only, so Alex was not invited. As overprotective as she was, Mom was originally hesitant, but Dad managed to convince her that seeing her friend would be good for her.

Which is how Cecelia found herself climbing into Uncle's car at ten minutes 'till one. He was wearing his sunglasses again, shielding his eyes, and the rest of his face was inscrutable. He could either be the uncle who'd been disappointed that she'd needed Spider-Man to save her, or the uncle that was actually concerned about her safety. It really was a fifty-fifty shot.

It took a couple of minutes—which Cecelia spent twiddling her thumbs in the passenger seat, staring out the window—before he spoke. "So, Cecelia, Toomes is going to want you to tell him what happened when we arrive at the warehouse, but do you want to give me a quick run-down now? I saw everything on the news, but I want to hear your story. Don't leave anything out, no matter how minuscule it might seem."

Cecelia shifted slightly. The seatbelt across her chest suddenly seemed too tight, restricting her chest. Instead of unbuckling it, she phased through it for a moment, catching in a gulp of air.

"Something happened on the elevator," she began. "One moment, everything was going fine, and then there was this flash of light and we blew to a stop. It took me a few seconds to see everything, since there was so much dust in the air, but when I did, the ceiling was all melted. Like something had cut into it, I think."

Uncle's fingers nearly slipped off his steering wheel. The car swerved, and Cecelia went solid again, her back slamming against her seat. He was quick to resume control, however, edging the car smoothly back into the lane. "A flash of light? A blast powerful enough to burn through the ceiling?"

"Yeah. I don't know what it was. I swear, it might have actually come from the elevator, but that would've been—" her voice trailed off. "Wait a minute."

Uncle's full attention was on her now. "You know Schultz and Vale were never able to fully recover that weapon Brice lost, right? The one they detected was coming from your school?"

"The one I had nothing to do with, yeah."

"You and Mason were careful with it. The core would only destabilize in an event of radiation exposure."

"No." Cecelia shook his head. "There's no way the core was there. I mean, it was traced to my school, but..."

"Cecelia. Was there anything in the Washington Monument that might have exposed the core to radiation?"

Cecelia's heart thudded in her ears. "No? I don't think so—oh, wait."

Uncle was so focused on her that he nearly ran a red light. It was only after a cacophony of honks that he realized what he was doing. He slammed on the brakes, and Cecelia pitched forward. Not bothering to apologize, he regarded her again. "Cecelia. What is it?"

"The security checkpoint." Cecelia was seriously getting lightheaded now. "We had to put everything on a conveyor belt for it to be X-Rayed. That might have the right amount of radiation to have destabilized the core."

"And do you think the blast that happened in the elevator would have been a blast caused by that destabilization?"

"Yeah. Yeah." Cecelia put her head in her hands. "Yeah... I think... I think it was."

Uncle took in a deep breath. "Well, this changes things. Either it was you who took that core, and I don't believe it was—you'd be smarter than that—"

"It wasn't. I swear."

"...Or it was a member of your Academic Decathlon Team. One of them managed to get their hands on our weapons."

"But... but..." This was a lot to process. "But... who? Why?"

"Didn't you say that Midtown was a science and technology school? And that your classmates were the type of people to just take apart those kinds of objects?"

"Well, yeah, but..."

"But what?"

"I don't know. Uncle, I know these people. All of them. And... and why would they even bring it with them to DC? Wouldn't they have kept it at home, or at the school's workshop?"

Uncle sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know, Cecelia. But this is making a little too much sense to me. The Washington Monument's elevator is stable—I've never heard of something like that happening before. And out of nowhere? No. An explosion of the core... well, it makes the most logical sense."

"So... what should I do?"

"Well, we're going to go over this with Toomes and the others, along with everything that happened with Spider-Man. But when you go back to school... keep an eye on your team. If one of them did end up picking up our weapon, we might have a problem on our hands."

"Okay."

"There's also something else," Uncle said. Cecelia turned to him.

"What is it?"

"Well... I've been thinking about the weapon lately. You do realize we lost it the same night Spider-Man intercepted our deal, right?"

"Yeah," Cecelia said. Where was he going with this?

"What if that wasn't a coincidence?"

Cecelia's lips parted. The blood was roaring so loudly in her ears now that she may as well have been underwater. "You're saying that..." her voice trailed off.

"I'm not saying anything for sure. I'm just suggesting that maybe, Spider-Man has been a lot closer to you than you thought."

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HAVEN: i don't even know if this chapter makes sense but i just wanted to post it. i hope you enjoyed lol.

thanks for reading!! <333