Thirty Minutes Later
Peter's POV

The young adult man rode carefully around the city on his motorbike, his red helmet secured on his head that way, if he did get into an accident – which was highly unlikely – he would hurt his head too badly despite his super-durability. Regardless, he chose to always be cautious in case a pedestrian walked through one of the crosswalks when the stoplight directly above them was green.

As they tend to do, he thought to himself, even chuckling a bit.

Peter Parker made sure there weren't any crazy psychos planning to speed through the red light before turning left and casually going just over the speed limit but not too much as to scare himself or anyone else. He suppressed a yawn despite being absolutely exhausted from the past few days, mostly due to the fact that balancing two jobs – pizza delivery boy for Joe's Pizza and freelance photographer for the Daily Bugle – as well as his antics as being the masked vigilante hero that saved countless citizens everyday... well, it was really beginning to take a toll on Peter's mental state.

He knew he needed a break, he was well aware of that, but he knew it could just never happen. His selflessness always got the better of him and he put that over his selfishness despite needing just one minute of sleep, at least. He couldn't catch a break lately, which was something he completely despised... but he wasn't able to fix that lingering problem.

Peter's mind drifted to what he was predicting would happen when he got to the Bugle: he was expecting Jameson to harass him over not having pictures of Spider-Man and, to be honest, he was getting pretty fed up with having to take said photos so he could have his own name slandered in the papers, although Jameson was unaware of this.

There had already been a dozen occurrences where Jameson would threaten to fire him from the freelance, but it had never been treated too seriously as he always begged Peter to come back seconds later and hired him back.

But then he thought of something else, and he even smiled a little at the idea. What if Christina happened to be in the building when he got there? Every time he had been in the last two months, he would either just miss her leaving or she just wouldn't be there at all. He hadn't seen her since June since their schedules had gone absolutely haywire, what with Christina busy raising Sidney, going to classes, and handling her job at the Bugle and all.

God, Peter really wished he had her patience sometimes...

If she did happen to be there, however, he would be immensely happy. Over the year and a half since... that happened, Peter had noticed Christina significantly improving from the miserable grieving state she had been in since the incident. He would have liked to see how she was doing now in the time that had passed since they had last seen one another.

And he just wanted to make up an excuse to see her, as he was finding it harder and harder to pretend not to be in love with her. He had sworn at her mother's funeral that he wouldn't allow himself to get too close to her, as he didn't want Christina to be put in further danger than she was in that night.

But, every time he saw her, he wanted to ignore those worries...

"Parker! PARKER!"

The loud shouting snapped Peter out of his distracted thoughts and his eyes widened as he found himself speeding towards his boss on the sidewalk.

"No, no, no, stop, STOP!" Mr. Aziz screamed in a heavy accent as he raised his hands up out of slight fear.

Peter didn't waste any time slamming his hands down on the brakes that were on the bike's handlebars, and he did so with such force that the bike nearly flipped forward. Luckily, he managed to plop safely back down on the ground before that happened.

"Parker, you're late, man!" Mr. Aziz exclaimed, glancing at his watch that sat on his left wrist. "Always late, huh?!"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Aziz," Peter replied sheepishly as he used his foot to place the kickstand down onto the ground, barely registering the chattering voices of the dozens of people walking around the city right by him. "There was a... disturbance...." He then had a worrying sensation in his heart, and he instinctively glanced down, quickly tucking the rest of his mask into the right pocket of his gray vest.

"Another disturbance?" Aziz asked in disbelief, throwing his hands up into the air. "There's always a disturbance with you. Come on!"

Peter reluctantly nodded and followed him into the small and crowded building, sighing heavily as he suppressed another yawn.

"Twenty-one minutes ago, in comes order!" Aziz shouted loud enough for Peter to hear as he walked over to the giant clock on the wall at the back of the front room where customers ate. "Harmattan, Burton & Smith. Eight extra-large deep-dish pizzas."

Peter closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose out of slight annoyance, just wishing that Aziz would get off of his case for just five minutes. He didn't know who was more strict, him or Jameson. At this point, he'd rather dive off a cliff than work for either of them... but he had to pay his bills and apartment rent.

"In eight minutes, I am defaulting on Joe's twenty-nine minute guarantee," Aziz said in an equally irritated voice, although he sounded more panicked. "Then, not only am I receiving no money for these pizzas, but I will lose the customer forever to Pizza Yurt!"

Aziz then walked behind the working counter as he sighed to himself, beginning to pick up said amount of pizzas to hand over to Peter, who was standing on the other side with an exhausted expression in his eyes. The younger man was quiet the entire time, not really wanting to interrupt his boss and make him angrier.

"Look, you are my only hope, all right?" Aziz said, placing the pizza boxes on the counter. "You have to make it in time. Peter, you're a nice guy, but you're just not dependable. This is your last chance."

Peter couldn't help but roll his eyes once Aziz turned his back to him, just hoping he would get fired so it would be over with. He knew he shouldn't have taken on this job, as it added even more fucking stress onto his shoulders, but he needed the money to get by so it wasn't like he had any choice.

"You have to go forty-two blocks in seven and one half minutes or your ass is fired," Aziz emphasized, taking out the receipt he had printed and taped it to the top of the pizza boxes.

Peter's eyes widened as he stared at the eight pizza boxes with a dumbfounded expression written all over his face. How in the hell was he going to manage getting these to a building around two to three miles away in New York damn City?! His mind was scrambling in a blank space as he tried to figure out a solution, but he just couldn't really think this morning.

Aziz raised his eyebrows and let out a disbelieving chuckle. What the hell was the kid waiting for?! Christmas?! "GO!" he shouted dramatically to get his attention.

_____

Christina's POV

The brunette was stuck in a slight traffic jam as the stoplight remained red for a little over a minute, which made her roll her eyes and sigh with annoyance. It was nearly eight in the morning now, which meant that she was even later for work than she had originally been. Extremely irritated, she couldn't help but lay on her Volkswagen's horn as she yelled for the car in front of her to move out of the way. But, when the driver of said vehicle stuck his middle finger out at her, she groaned with exhaustion as she leaned her head back against the seat.

Christina was one hundred percent getting fired now if she was more than an hour late.

"Please fucking move..." she mumbled as she sighed to herself, just praying that she would get there at least around 8:30. The constant sounds of yelling and honking horns of the cars surrounding her were enough to give her migraine due to how much it really irked her.

Such a bullshit way to start a day, she thought to herself.

The minutes ticked closer to the point that she would, inevitably, be fired for good. And, considering how civil Jameson and Christina had become towards one another, she really didn't need to be fired. She still needed the job until she was able to get an interview for a possible social working job that was close to home. She always prayed that her dream would come true, as it was something she had wanted since she was a little kid. Besides, it could possibly help her even more than she had already been helped; supporting depressed and traumatized children always made her feel better when she saw them much happier and with new families.

She had often seen this in movies or even in real life whenever she saw families with foster children that they actually care about.

Kind of wish Michael was the same way with me, Christina thought with a roll of her eyes.

Unfortunately for her, Michael and Allyson had successfully managed to work themselves into her life after Sidney moved in with her, mostly due to making an agreement to have the pre-teen stay with them every weekend. Feeling generous, Christina reluctantly allowed this and she would also visit from time to time, but only to see Sidney and their baby brother.

Aidan Johnson was only just over a year old and the two girls already cherished him more than their own parents because, unlike them, he wasn't corrupted just yet... hopefully never.

Christina absolutely adored the little boy and often played games with him whenever she visited or when Michael and Allyson brought him to her apartment to spend time with her. She noticed right away when he was born that he looked nearly identical to her and it was completely uncanny, but he had been a perfect baby. And she knew that he would be a handsome young man whenever he got older.

She, much to her dismay, would be too busy to see him today but she hoped that she would get to visit him the next day.

Her thoughts were broken by the sound of the car in front of her driving forward as the stoplight finally, after an eternity, flashed the color green. Christina gently stepped on her gas pedal and her vehicle also lurched forward as she yawned, grabbing her thermos bottle that she had poured her coffee in and sipping from it.

Out of absolutely nowhere, somebody sped through the red light on their motorbike and Christina almost rammed her car into them by pure accident. She stomped on the brake pedal and she could hear the brakes squealing with the effort of stopping; placing her thermos back in her cup holder, she slammed her hand on the horn, hearing it blare for several seconds. "Watch where you're going!" she shouted loudly.

But the person on the motorbike was already long gone.

Fucking dumbass, she thought.

Finally recovering from the shock of the moment, Christina drove forward again before the light could switch colors. Much to her lack of luck, however, the very next stoplight was also red and she had to stop driving once more. She sighed as she placed her head into her hand, rubbing her eyelids out of tiredness.

"Woah, he stole that guy's pizzas!" came a male voice from fifteen feet away near one of the crosswalks.

Christina instinctively looked out her windshield to see whatever the man had been talking about. At first, she could see absolutely nothing but the tops of scaling buildings and the blue and partly cloudy sky. Seconds later, though, she was able to spot a very small figure extremely high up from where she was. The figure swung down not too long afterwards before shooting another web to launch himself away from the cars.

Was that Spider-Man... and what in the absolute hell was he holding in his left hand?

_____

Ten Minutes Later

Christina finally pulled up next to the sidewalk and climbed out of the Volkswagen just barely after turning off the engine. She then jogged towards the entrance and entered the Daily Bugle, instantly making a beeline for the elevator, which she took to the twenty-fifth floor. She mumbled to herself in a scolding tone, just praying that she wouldn't have to pack her things by that afternoon and take a hike.

Thirty seconds later, the brunette made it to her floor and walked as fast as she could to her cubicle and was ready to hang her purse on the chair and place her thermos on the desk.

"You're late, Johnson!" came a slightly booming voice from behind her.

Christina slowly turned around to face her boss, a worried expression in her eyes.

J. Jonah Jameson hardly looked any different than he had yesterday and it almost seemed as though he was in the same pinstripe suit he had worn then. His salt-and-pepper hair and mustache seemed way more apparent than before, however, even though it was a sight Christina had gotten used to since she worked there. This was especially since she and him had actually formed a sort of friendship, almost like a father-daughter bond of a kind.

They got along way better than they had two years ago when Jameson was really strict with her and always bossed her around. After learning of the passing of the woman's mother, he had grown much more sympathetic and had been looking out for her more often than not. He was way easier on her than in the past and this attitude was only shown towards her, even to the point that they were on a first-name basis whenever they visited one another, especially after he had introduced his son to her and they had also become friends.

But just because they were somewhat friends now, that didn't mean he would entirely let her off the hook for being late.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Jameson," the brunette mumbled timidly as she became frustrated. "Please don't fire me. I overslept, I had to take Sidney to school, and then I got caught in traffic, and –"

"Christina, Christina," Jameson said with wide eyes as he stepped over to her. "Don't drive yourself crazy, kid. Slow down before you give both of us a heart attack."

"Sorry," Christina mumbled as she sat down in her chair, putting her face in her hands. "I just don't want to be fired."

"I'm not gonna fire you, kid," Jameson emphasized as he looked down at her with worry in his stern eyes. "Stop panicking."

"I'm trying, I'm trying, Jonah," Christina breathed out as she sighed to herself.

"Just consider this a warning of some sorts," her boss said. "But I probably wouldn't fire you under any circumstance. Did you get any sleep after getting home last night?"

The brunette simply nodded, not speaking in return.

"Good," Jameson said. "Then you can get to work and get me some files from the back room. And don't pass out, please."

The woman nodded again with a sarcastic expression in her blue eyes, jokingly saluting him. "Right away, sir," she mumbled.

After a little while of transporting several files to the main office – which had been remodeled after... her tormenter had destroyed the back wall with his glider – Christina was completely exhausted. Luckily, she had her coffee at hand to keep her just barely awake. She was currently staring at the picture that sat on her desk, which contained an image of her, Sidney, and Aidan. She was holding Aidan in her arms when he was seven months old, and that alone made the brunette smile a little bit.

Unfortunately for her, she was called to grab another file for Jameson. Groaning to herself, she went to said back room to grab said file and was on her way to take it to said office like she had the past several times that morning.

But, just as she reached the glass doors to the office, two distinct voices entered her ears and she paused in order to listen to the conversation.

"I don't pay you to be a sensitive artiste," Jameson said sternly, completely ignoring the presence of Robbie Robertson demanding that he get the photo for Page One. "I pay you because – Still not now!"

He said that towards Betty Brant, who had been rushing into the office with a slip of paper, presumably to deliver a message he had refused to listen to earlier. Betty simply rolled her eyes and sauntered out of the room irritatedly.

"I pay you because, for some reason, that psycho Spider-Man will pose for you," Jameson continued in a pointed tone, glaring at whoever was sitting in front of him.

That particular sentence struck a chord with Christina in a way she didn't expect, not because the hero of New York City was being slandered yet again. It was because of the context of the sentence he was saying, and who he could have possibly been saying it to.

If he was talking about photos of Spider-Man, then surely he was talking to –

"Spider-Man won't let me take any more pictures," a younger man replied in a stressed out tone. "You've turned the whole city against him!"

Fuck, why is he here right now?! Christina frantically thought to herself as she stared into the office, internally panicking. Why, why, why???

Peter Parker was in that office right as she was about to walk in; and she definitely didn't want to run into him at this very moment, not looking to being embarrassed around him while at work.

And the expression Jameson had when he snuck a glance in Christina's direction wasn't helping her case, as he had already become aware of her feelings for the person he was talking to. But he didn't dare give away that she was standing there, much to her relief, especially when Peter later handed a picture to him to post for Page One of the paper.

"It stinks..." he mumbled quietly before handing the picture to the man standing next to him. "Robbie, there's your Page One. 'Masked Menace Terrorizes Town.'"

"I told you he's not a menace!" Robbie replied in a genuinely scolding tone.

"And I told you –" Jameson tried to fire back.

"I'll take care of it!" Robbie shouted before sighing with annoyance and walking out of the office.

Christina then eventually walked away from the glass doors and waited for Peter to leave before taking the file to Jameson. After he seemingly appeared to leave the floor, she then booked it to the office and handed the file to her boss. "Please tell me that's the last one," she said in a tired voice.

"You're done with this task, kid," Jameson said before smirking a little. "By the way, Parker was here earlier, in case you didn't know," he added.

"Yeah, thanks for not ratting me out to him," she said before walking out of the office.

"Wait, Christina, one more job for you!" Jameson shouted to get her attention. "Can you take this file back to the back room for me?"

The woman rolled her eyes before nodding and grabbing the file from his hand and walking back out of the office. She began briskly moving towards the file room, just wanting to get back to her desk so she could take the smallest nap, at least. She was way too tired for this shit today, after all, and she couldn't wait to get home to relax for a few hours.

Suddenly, however, she felt a human presence accidentally bump into her and she dropped the file. Christina quickly bent down to pick it up as she murmured, "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry, ma'am," a male voice said as the person in question also kneeled down. "Let me help you."

"No, you don't have to do that," the woman said as she chuckled humorlessly, gathering up the papers in said file and placing them back into the manila folder.

"Chris...?"

Shit, she thought. He didn't leave.

Christina quickly stood up, her face completely red as she stared at the person in front of her, completely embarrassed and shy. "Peter," she mumbled. "H-Hi."

Christina's confidence had completely withered away following Margaret's death, and she had been reduced to a shallow shell of her former self. This version of her tended to become a lot more vulnerable in serious situations and she was way more timid than she once was. Her tough nature was entirely gone now, and it was replaced with something pretty pathetic: weakness.

She tended to be way more sheepish whenever she was in Peter Parker's presence, which was why she was relieved to not have seen him in two months. Her crush on him had significantly grown since she had first realized those feelings, which was something she wasn't a fan of for two reasons; one, she wasn't the best at dating anyone – she had a girlfriend named Alyssa for eight months not too long ago and it didn't work out (she didn't want to expose their relationship, as she was afraid of homophobic assholes attacking them, and they had grown apart) – and she hated being vulnerable about her feelings. Two, she was afraid she would never be good enough for Peter, which is also how he felt in regards to his love for her.

"Hey," Peter replied with a timid smile as he looked down at the shorter woman. "How are you?"

"I'm fine, I guess..." Christina shyly murmured as she bashfully looked up at him, barely meeting his eyes... those endearing eyes that she could lose herself in. "What about you?" she added, snapping herself out of her slight trance.

"Not doing the best but I'm managing," Peter said with a sigh, shrugging his shoulders. "Is Sidney doing alright?"

The brunette nodded as she smiled a little. "Yeah, you know her," she said with a chuckle. "She handles anything."

Peter nodded his head as he also smiled at what Christina said; he then took a moment to examine her appearance, as he hadn't seen her in quite a while. She looked relatively the same, except for one major difference in how she appeared to him, and it was something he certainly wasn't expecting.

"I see you've changed your hair," he pointed out with a slight blush, noticing the now chestnut brown hair she had that had grown curlier over the several months that had passed.

Christina nodded her head slightly as her face turned redder, humming a bit to herself. "Yeah, I did," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "I just sort of dyed it a month ago, figured it was time for a change." She was aware that she looked more like her mother than she ever had, and that may have been one of the reasons she dyed it not too long prior to today.

Peter just smiled as he nodded his head. "Well, I like it," he complimented as he stared at her with a look of longing in his eyes. "It suits you very well..."

The brunette let out a soft breath of extreme nervousness as she twisted a finger around a stray lock of hair that had fallen from its bun. "Thanks," she whispered a little, trying to regain her composure. "I may keep it this way, honestly."

"You should," Peter suggested with an endearing expression in his eyes.

An awkward moment of silence passed between them before Christina cleared her throat in a desperate attempt to change the subject.

"Um, I'm actually going to Aunt May's house later to visit her," she pointed out with a bright expression in her own eyes now. "I may bring Sidney with me. If you want to stop by, we can all catch up and everything."

Please let the lie work.

Peter's eyes lit up at the idea of not only visiting Aunt May, but also Christina and her sister. It would not only give him the opportunity to get away from everything surrounding him, but he would get to check on his aunt, see how Sidney was doing (as she had grown to be a surrogate little sister to him), and also spend even more time with the woman he so badly loved.

"Sure, I'll stop by," he said almost instantly, smiling brightly now at the thought. "It'll help me take a break from everything going on lately."

Christina grinned as she grew excited, practically bouncing up and down with happiness. "Great!" she said cheerfully. "We may head out there around 6:30, so I'll see you then?"

"Sounds like a plan," Peter replied.

After a shy little goodbye between them, Christina smirked as Peter walked away, proud of herself for working up a scheme to successfully lure him to his aunt's house.

She couldn't wait for later that night.

A/N: here we go, we're officially twenty chapters in! i feel very accomplished, honestly!

what did you think of this chapter? was it good? let me know?

did you like my 'novelization' of the scene with peter about to deliver the pizzas? i wanted to make it accurate to the film!

so christina also has a little brother! how does everyone feel about that?

what did you think of the scene at the daily bugle? do you like how jameson is a lot easier on christina? what about the moment between her and peter?

predictions for the next chapter, although it's obvious?

be looking forward to the next chapter!

-dembroughswife