"THERE ARE OVER 32,000 known species of spider in the world. They're in the order Aranae, divided into three suborders."

All of the students had long since entered the museum and were now in the spider section. This was particularly bad for Christina since she despised spiders; but she guessed that just looking at them through glass barriers was not so bad. Plus, Peter and Harry were by her side, so she felt a little safer with them around.

But she was actually very interested in what the guide of the museum tour was telling the group. She had no idea that there were that many spiders that lived on the planet. It was absolutely insane, but it greatly fascinated her and kept her interest at an all-time high.

"That's amazing!" whispered Peter in an excited voice. "This is the most advanced electron microscope in the eastern seaboard. It's unreal."

Christina couldn't help but smile at how much Peter was loving this tour. She may have hated science, but it made her happy that her best friend had a passion for something that was actually relevant to the world. So, if Peter was happy, then she was. She wasn't going to ruin it all for him.

The blonde glanced to her left to see Mary Jane struggling with Flash a little; the redhead was telling her boyfriend to leave her be and not be too close to her. It made Christina grit her teeth a little when her friend had to literally push Flash's arm off of her shoulders. She sent the boy a warning glare, a slight fire burning in her blue eyes.

"Arachnids from all three groups," the guide continued, "possess varying strengths which help them in their constant search for food. For example, the Delena spider, family Sparassidae, has the ability to jump to catch its pray."

Christina was lost in what the black-haired woman was saying that she just barely heard Peter ask if he could take a picture for the school paper. But she did see the woman nod in approval. Seconds later, the girl felt herself being pushed and it was as if Peter had stumbled into her. She turned around to meet the eyes of one of Flash's cronies smirking at Peter.

The blonde rolled her eyes as she gently grabbed Peter's arm and pulled him along with her. She looked at him and silently begged him to ignore the jerks following close to them; he nodded almost immediately afterwards.

"Next," continued the guide, "we have the net web spider, family Filistatidae, genus Kukulcania. It spins an intricate, funnel-shaped web whose strands have a tensile strength proportionally equal to the type of high-tension wire."

Christina felt herself being pushed again and she quickly spun around to catch the same prick bumping Peter's shoulder on purpose. The words feeling bitter on her tongue, she began to spit them out, but someone interrupted that.

"Leave him alone," Harry said bravely, making Christina feel proud of him.

"Or what?" retorted Flash's friend. In return, the blonde girl raised her left hand and smacked the back of his head as hard as she could.

"What's Daddy gonna do?" snarled Flash as he forcefully grabbed the boy's arm. "Sue me?"

"I'm about to find some kind of remote to switch the 'OFF' button on your mouth, Flash," snapped Christina, "or I'll just take my right foot and shove it up your—"

"What is going on?"

The young girl jumped but shut her mouth and turned her head back to the guide. Luckily for her, the teacher didn't even notice that she was talking in the first place, since he was only lightly scolding Harry and Flash.

"The next person who talks will fail this course," hissed her teacher. "I kid you not. Let's go."

As Christina began walking, she felt a hand on her left shoulder. She turned her head to look at Peter, who was giving her a look of worry. "I'm fine," she whispered before he could even ask the inevitable question.

"You sure?" he asked. She nodded as she put a hand on his for a second before lowering it.

She then turned around and distanced herself from Peter and Harry for a little bit so she could look around more. She was so lost in the many species of spiders that she saw that she didn't even hear Mary Jane say that one of the so-called "super-spiders" were missing.

After a while, she heard the teacher scolding Harry over the fact that the boy should have been listening to the guide during her presentation. She quietly giggled behind her hand when she heard this, but she made sure that her teacher couldn't hear her in the slightest.

Christina then reached her right hand out and touched the glass barrier that protected her from the spiders. A small smile of interest was touching her lips as she stared at the arachnids crawling around on their webs.

The blonde suddenly heard footsteps behind her and she turned to see Peter rushing over to her. She could see that his eyes were wide, but she sensed that he didn't want to say anything. It made her eyebrows scrunch together in worry as she looked at him.

"What's wrong, Pete?" she asked him in concern. When she saw him shake his head, it only made her more worried for his well-being.

"I'm okay. I'm fine, Chris," he said quicker than usual.

"You sure?" Christina pressed further. "You don't look that... good..."

She had glanced down briefly and saw something purple on his right hand but she wasn't able to see what it was, since Peter swiftly hid his hand from her vision. But before she was able to ask anything else, the bespectacled boy quickly walked away from her in a panic.

Christina sighed to herself, running a few fingers through her hair; she thought about how pale her best friend looked and she didn't know if she should get help.

She figured that he would probably go to the nurse's office when they got back to the school. She was just a little worried. After all, Peter could have just been feeling a little lightheaded...

Right...?

(  NOTE  )
not a great chapter (in my opinion), but i hope you guys liked it nonetheless! be looking forward to the next one!

-denbroughswife