LEILA touched her daughter's forehead with the back of her head as she checked her temperature, "You sure you don't want to go to school today?" She asked, her eyebrows furrowed in concern.

Lillian nodded as sniffled, taking a tissue from the box that was laying on her bed and blew her nose. "Yeah, I have this huge migraine which is not helping with my runny nose." She looked up at her mom with her sick and tired eyes.

"Alright, get some rest okay? I'm gonna go get some soup after I drop off your brother at school." Leila told her daughter as she brushed away the hair that was falling onto her face.

"Can I look at your Spider-Man cases to keep me occupied?" Lillian asked as she gave her mother the puppy eyes and a pouty lip.

"No, if you can do that then you can be perfectly fine to go to school." Leila pointed out.

"Mom, please?" Lillian pleaded as she deepened her pout. "I'm your favorite child, c'mon. I can help you solve the case." She whispered as she nudged her mother.

Leila shushed her, "Fine. Fine. But you're going to school tomorrow even if you're still sick." She said sternly, pointing a finger at her daughter.

"Okay." Lillian smiled, "I love you mom."

Leila nodded her head as she hummed in response, "Sure you do." She spat playfully as she left Lillian's room to take her son to school.

Lillian blew her nose once more before getting out of bed, going into her mother's room as she dragged the transparent board into her room. Throwing her hair up into a messy bun, sighing as she went to blow her nose once more whilst throwing the used tissue in the little trash bin beside her desk. She went back to her mother's room to get her Spider-Man case that her mother had on top of her dresser. Going back to her room, she sat down on her swivel chair as she looked through the file. She sneezed as she pulled up the picture of Spider-Man from bank robbery footage.

Grabbing some tape, she taped the picture from the backside of the board so she wouldn't mark on it. She picked up an expo marker from her desk, writing down a few possibilities of who he could be next to the picture. She then looked through the file once more pulling out a picture from the Washington incident, taping it next to the bank robbery picture.

At first she thought it could be Flash, but thought against it once she knew that if it was truly Flash he would gloat about it. Crossing Flash's name off, she added Peter's name next to her boyfriend, Elijah. Her arms crossed in frustration as she sighed taking a second to look at what she had on the board so far.

"Found anything yet?" She heard her mother ask.

Lillian shook her head in defeat, her eyes widening once she realized it couldn't Elijah since she was with him when Spider-Man saved them. She erased Elijah and Flash's name, focusing more on Peter. She groaned, thinking it couldn't be right. She knew that Peter was known for always disappearing and being late for things, but it was because of his internship he had.

Leila sighed, looking at her daughter stress over a man in spandex. "Honey, you know," She leaned on her daughter's door frame, "you usually wait until they do something wrong before you declare them guilty." She reminded.

Lillian looked at her mother before glaring at the bored in concentration, "I know that." She said sucking in her teeth as she shook her head. "But he's hiding something." She muttered looking over the Washington picture.

Leila placed the soup on top of Lillian's dresser near the door. "Here's your soup. Don't stress over the whole spiderling... guy. I don't think you're gonna find anything. I sure as hell didn't." Leila chuckled as she left her room.

"You'd be surprised." Lillian mumbled as she sniffled, grabbing the soup from her dresser. She sat down on her swivel chair as she ate her soup, looking over the board once again. She thought about how Peter quit nationals for the Stark internship. Then about how Michelle recalled Peter quitting marching band and robotics lab. She remembered how Ned told everyone that Peter knew Spider-Man and was quick to deny it. Which lead Peter to go to Liz's party and conveniently disappear when Spider-Man showed up on Liz's roof and also disappear. She remember the next day how Peter and Ned were acting weirder than normal.

She looked over at the Washington picture once more as she thought about how Peter rejoined the decathlon team, but never showed up for nationals. She remembered how Jade and Michelle texted her about Peter not being up in the monument with the team. Lillian shook her head, denying every thought as she remembered Spider-Man conveniently being there to save her friends. Placing her half empty soup down on her desk as she started pacing around her room, remembering his voice from last night and how it sounded familiar to her. She told herself that it wasn't Peter and that she was just in shock from last night's incident.

But everything was starting to make sense. She sat down again, pulling out her laptop. She searched up Stark Internship or anything close to it, but got nothing. She let out a breath in disbelief, "Dammit." She said under her breath.

Her phone dinged a couple times, catching her attention as she closed out of her laptop. Gliding over to her bed, she picked up her phone seeing that she had a text from her group chat with Michelle and Jade, Elijah, and... Peter?

-

[ private message ]
peter as pete 🛸
lillian as lills 🌌

pete 🛸
hey :)

missed u at school
today

everything okay?

lills 🌌
yeah just feeling a lil
sick thats all

pete 🛸
hope you feel better
soon :)

lills 🌌
thanks parker ✨

-

[ private message ]
elijah as eli g. 💓
lillian as lilly 💘

eli g. 💓
hey babe is everything
okay?

lilly 💘
yeah

i'm not feeling too good
atm but i'm okay :)

eli g. 💓
do u want me to come
over after school??

lilly 💘
if u feel like being
interrogated by my
mom 😂

-

[ group message ]
jade as sLiM jaYdEe 💍
mj as mIchELle obAmA 🖤
lillian as lEEDle LeE 🌫

sLiM jaYdEe 💍
ur cANcellED!1

mIchELle obAmA 🖤
she's been going around
school acting like ur
dying so now she's mad
n disowning u

lEEDle LeE 🌫
sis-

eYE-

ya gIRL IS SICK LET
A SIS BREATHE!1!

sLiM jaYdEe 💍
oof damn das
tUFF

o wHaLe

ur missing tHe pOiNT,,
i MiSS yoUUU

lEEDlE LeE 🌫
wtf yOU GOT MJ TO
KEEP U COMPANY

mIchELle obAmA 🖤
thats what i said but she's
been lowkey avoiding me
for sum reason

lEEDlE LeE 🌫
i know whyyy 👀☕️

sLiM jaYdEe 💍
gotta yEET n delETE
my entire existence

-

Leila knocked on her daughter's door, snapping Lillian's attention from her phone. "You got a visitor in the living room." Leila smiled motioning toward the living room area.

Lillian's eyebrows furrowed, "Who?" She asked softly as her mother gave her a playful smile before leaving. Lillian got up from her chair as she quickly put away the Spider-Man case along with taking the pictures down and erasing the board.

"Hey." Lillian heard a soft voice say as they knocked on her door frame.

She turned around to see Peter, "Uh, hi." She looked at the time on her phone as she sat on her bed. "Aren't you supposed to be in class right now?"

"No. I-I well, yeah." He shrugged nervously as he sat down next to her, "I-I got you your favorite candy when we were kids since I was on my way to t-the internship." He smiled, handing her a semi-full bag of sour patch kids and airheads xtremes.

"You remembered?" She smiled taken aback, "Thanks, Pete." She said softly, giving him a warm hug.

"It was nothing." He shrugged as he gave her a small smile.

Lillian bit her tongue to try to hold back her question, but a part of her wanted to know if she was right. She let out a small sigh, looking at Peter, "How's the internship going?" She asked, turning her body to face him completely.

"It's alright." He shrugged as he tried to hide his nervousness.

"Oh. It doesn't sound all too exciting as everyone is making it out to be." She chuckled lightly.

Peter chuckled along with her, "Y-Yeah, not really. I uh, just do the tech stuff." He gave her a closed lipped smile. "How did your date go?" He asked changing the subject.

She narrowed her eyes slightly, notching the not-so-subtle subject change, "It was good, Eli asked me to be his girlfriend." She nodded.

"O-Oh... um, what did you say?"

"I said yes. Then he walked me home and we almost got robbed by some dude." She shrugged.

"A-Are you okay? Well, obviously you're okay because you're alive, but still-"

"Pete, I'm fine." Lillian let out a small laugh, "Everything was okay. Spider-Man stopped the guy before he could do anything."

Peter nodded in understanding, "That's good. W-What do you think of him? Spider-Man?"

Lillian sighed in thought, "I- He's a great guy. I just hope he knows what he's doing and that he's careful." She said softly as her words sunk in for Peter.

Peter nodded slowly, "Y-Yeah." He said as he felt his phone vibrate in his jeans, pulling his phone to see a reminder for something he had planned. "I should get- I gotta go."

Lillian nodded, "Y-Yeah. Of course, uh bye Pete." She said giving him a small wave goodbye as he gave her a small smile goodbye.

Lillian let out a deep breath, falling backwards into her bed as she covered her face. Everything was falling into place, it all made sense. All of her thoughts swarmed her as she tried everything in her to deny what she was thinking and feeling. She knew it couldn't be him. It just couldn't. But it was.