chapter thirty-seven
sit next to me

    THE FLIGHT was interesting. 

    Sitting next to Brad for the majority of it wasn't the most interesting part. In fact, Nina regrettably enjoyed it. Even if he said he didn't like Star Wars and only had the prequels for Natalie Portman to which he gushed about each time she was on screen, Nina couldn't blame him because she gushed each time Obi-Wan Kenobi spoke or even just looked at something. 

     When she could move out of her seat, she squeezed past him and would make her way over to chat to MJ who glanced up at her each time over the brim of her book like she was the most annoying thing in existence. But Nina just grinned and crouched in beside her (or sat on her lap, not caring about anyone giving her weird looks) to tell her about Brad's reactions to Star Wars, hoping she'd share her bewilderment. Most of the time, MJ just continued to read her book with her chin propped on her shoulder, barely even listening with a few hummus here and there. 

     That was until Nina got in trouble from one of the flight attendants, and she had to leave her friend and sulk back to her seat. 

      What made it interesting was each time she tried to talk to Peter, or ran into him━he'd go bright red and spin the other way. Nina frowned after him, not sure whether to be concerned or suspicious. Like when she got up the third time to go to the toilet (since she couldn't use MJ as her seat), the door opened and there he was. She smiled, wanting to say hello until he froze and in seconds, had closed the door again right in her face. 

      Nina waited there for a few seconds, very awkward. Was he all right? Did he go to the toilet and then realise he had to go again? Because that's happened to her a few times. 

      She glanced around her━checking that nobody was watching━before shuffling closer to the door. She pressed her ear to it, wondering what on earth he was doing in there. If it was anyone else, she'd let it go, but it was Peter, and either something was wrong with him, or something else in regards to this plane. Nina didn't know which was undoubtedly better ... in her experience, they could quite possibly mean the same thing. 

      Until she heard the toilet flush again and Nina went bright red, jumping away from the door as if she had been burned. She face-palmed, groaning softly to herself at her own stupidity and embarrassment. She just tried to listen━(Oh, what was wrong with her?!). 

     She had to get out of here. She couldn't face him if he opened the door again. Nina glanced around her, looking for a place to hide━until she realised she was on a plane and could just go back to her seat, and so she did, rushing down the aisle and climbing over Brad without a word. She brought her knees up, hiding her bright red cheeks with the sleeves of her jumper. 

      Peter stepped out a few seconds later, his hair fixed and his teeth clear of anything he might've missed from his on-flight snack. He grinned, ready to say hello to Nina, only to falter. 

      Brad smiled, holding up a peace-sign (who does peace-signs anymore?). Peter's grin fell and what replaced it was a tick to his jaw. He stepped aside to let Brad in, realising he just spent an embarrassing amount of time in the toilet for nothing. 

      In the end, they were all thankful when the nine hours was finally over, and the light for seatbelts returned━and at last, it was time to land in Venice. Peter got off the plane, squinting at the sudden sunlight and grinding his teeth━step one and two of his plan? Completely ruined. He didn't even have the energy to take a moment to breathe in the fact that he was standing in Venice, spending all of his focus glowering over the heads in the terminal at Nina and Brad who were showing each other their passport photos with MJ still reading her book behind them. 

     Peter glanced down at his passport, opening it up to frown at his photo. He had a funny photo (he could just never take a good picture), why couldn't Nina be laughing at his embarrassing passport photo?

     He closed it with a sigh and pushed past Flash who was already recording a live of his arrival in Venice, "Hey, Flash Mob! Just touched down in Venice and let me tell you... Oh, hey, it's Penis Parker! Penis Parker━!" he turned his phone onto him, grinning as he thought of the perfect insults, "━how was your flight? Did you enjoy flying over all the poor neighbourhoods or what?"

     Peter didn't give him a glance and just moved onwards, not even satisfied when Flash held an awkward pause when the content he sought held no approval.

      Finding Ned, Peter rushed forward. He grasped his best friend's arm and whispered, "Hey, man, did you see Brad and Nina on the plane? They were watching movies and laughing the entire time."

      Ned's shoulders slumped. He gave him a sad, but understanding look━calm as if he had just spent an hour relaxing on some distant resort beach. "Dude," he said, as cool as a sea breeze, "don't worry, okay? I'm sure that's nothing."

     "Hey, babe?"

     Peter instantly made a face. At first, he thought he had been mistaken━that perhaps he was overhearing somebody else's conversation, until the last person he expected joined them with a smile on her face. Betty Brant squeezed Ned's shoulder, and he let out a dreamy sigh at the very touch. She grinned and passed him his bag, "Can you hold this for me?"

     Ned nodded, breathless, "Y━yeah, of course!"

     Her smile brightened, "Thanks," she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. Peter's frown deepened━he glanced around, double checking that the world wasn't ending again and there weren't aliens descending down from the skies. 

     His best friend let out another sigh, reaching out to tap Betty Brant's nose and she giggled, a blush rising onto her cheeks. She then left, shooting Peter a small wave before hurrying back over to her friends. 

     Silence settled. Peter set his gaze onto his best friend, both absolutely bewildered and accusing━wanting nothing more than a precise explanation with many powerpoint slides and perhaps a diorama to explain just how ... that ... happened. Ned met his gaze, and was taken aback. "What?"

     Peter blinked, surprised at his response. "What do you mean what?" he let out in a hushed tone. "What was that?" he gestured back to Betty who was stealing glances over her shoulder. 

     Ned noticed and he smiled, like a happy romantic in love. Peter didn't know how he felt about it━disgusted might be a word ... "Oh, well━" Ned shrugged, unable to explain it, "━we just got to talking on the plane, and it turns out, we have a lot in common. So━uh━we're boyfriend and girlfriend now."

      "Betty likes slaying beasts in computer games?" Peter frowned, not at all believing it. 

      Ned matched his frown. Then, he grasped his shoulder, sympathetic, "I know you're just jealous because you couldn't talk to Nina on the plane," Peter reared his head back, incredulous, "but it's okay, dude, everything will work out. Love is special that way."

      Peter shrugged his hand off, still trying to comprehend everything that had just happened before his eyes. "Whatever happened to being an American bachelor in Europe?"

     His friend tapped his cheek fondly. The young superhero turned up his nose, not expecting it, "Peter," said Ned wisely, "those were the words of a boy. And that boy met a woman. A very strong and powerful woman. And now, that boy's a man━" he gave him a gentle slap. Peter closed his eyes, doing his very best to stay calm. "You'll understand one day."

      "Babe?"

     At her call, Ned forgot completely about Peter and shuffled after her, "Coming babe!"

     Peter slumped after his retreating figure, throwing his gaze up in annoyance. His eyes wandered back to where Nina was standing with Brad, only to not see her around. Immediately, he stood up straight, unable to stop himself from thinking the worse, until━

     "What was that about?"

     Peter jumped, letting out a sound he wasn't too proud of. He spun back and found Nina gasping, her hand covering her mouth to hide how much he knew she wanted to laugh at him. He sighed, relieved and breathed out his own chuckle, shaking his head at her. (And at himself).

     "What is it with you?" Nina said, giggling behind her fingers. "How can I sneak up on you, but not bad guys?"

      Peter shrugged, easily slipping out a quip, "Because you're just not that intimidating."

     She shoved him lightly at that and he grinned━his bad trip on the plane didn't matter anymore, every heavy feeling in his chest lit up with wings to know that she had come to find him after━that she was standing here with him right now. "I can be intimidating," argued Nina.

      "People who say they can be intimidating aren't intimidating," Peter joked. "It's like someone saying they didn't mean any offence after they said something offensive."

      "Maybe I'm the exception."

     "Nina," he gave her a look, biting back his want to smile to see the cross of her arms, "you have an obsession with hot chocolate━that's something only a Disney Princess or Barbie would be addicted to."

      He wondered whether she noticed just how much his heart fluttered to see her roll her eyes with that slight smirk upon her lips. Peter wondered whether she knew what she was doing to him━and begged she still felt the same way. She was intimidating, just in ways she didn't even realise. 

     "Come on, Tiger," she nudged him and he couldn't stop the flustered chuckle that escaped his lips. "Venice awaits!"

     Step one and step two might not have gone completely to plan, but Peter still had his chance. Step three had arrived, and he wasn't going to mess this one up. Though, suddenly, he jarred to an abrupt stop. Eyes wide, Peter spun around, breath hitched.

    Nina stopped, glancing back. She frowned, concerned, "Pete? What is it?"

     Peter took a deep breath, searching the crowd━hoping that he had imagined it. And perhaps he did ... but for a second there, he thought he saw a flash of platinum white blonde hair. 

*ೃ༄

    IT TOOK too long for Nina to realise she was in Venice. It wasn't the moment she got off the plane, or passed through security and had her passport checked. It wasn't even as she stepped outside under terminal signs in both English and Italian. It was when she had to take a step onto a boat to take them to the motel they were to stay at. 

     Nina had been excited about the canals. But she didn't register completely the realisation that she was in a completely different country until she sat down and could smell the water━strangely sour in her nose. She didn't realise until she saw the narrow sidewalks around buildings with foundations of stone. The city seemed to be an island in itself, with narrow twists and turns━where the water split off into streams and rivers underneath cobblestone bridges. Brick complexes towered a few stories up either side, some with brittle stone that looked as though they had stood there for a good hundred years while others were bright in colours of blue, red-brick roofs and yellow. 

     They drifted down a large harbour closer towards the centre of the city and Nina dragged MJ to the front of the boat before she could even have a say in it. The wind brushed her hair back over her shoulders like a gentle kiss, chapping her grinning lips as Nina examined the architecture of generations━from the days of Ancient Rome to the Renaissance, though its troubles with Napoleon, Austria and France, each held its history in a city that was slowly sinking under the pressure. But right now, Nina held a privilege to see something that might be gone in a few hundred years━forgotten like many others before it. 

     Michelle told her specific historical moments she recalled off the top of her head as they passed buildings, vessels and waved at tourists and locals by the edge of the canals. She pointed out Saint Mark's Basilica and the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore━each gorgeous as they towered above in fortress walls around domed centre towers. Nina took as many pictures as she could, hearing the exclaims of the students as they gestured to anything they saw━nothing in comparison to the blocked and squared layout of New York City. 

     Betty had her new boyfriend take pictures of her in front of as many buildings she could as they passed through the canal. Ned stumbled with her phone, taking a few too many blurred that he quickly deleted with a nervous grin on his face. 

     They drifted underneath the Rialto Bridge and Nina gaped upwards, thrilled like a child in a toy store as large as Grand Central Station. Her gaze wandered back over her shoulder, wanting to see whether everyone else was as awestruck as she was, only to notice someone already looking at her.

     She quirked a brow, feeling fluttery in her chest as Peter quickly adverted his gaze, biting back the want to smile. Nina's lips quirked upwards, suddenly very shy when she noticed the blush rise across his cheeks. She slowly set her eyes forward, but risked a peek back━hoping he wouldn't see, and Nina felt something inside her swell to see that even with all the wonders around them: the history, the culture and the beautiful old buildings, all Peter Parker found interesting and stunning was her; her smile as she saw anything and everything, her excitement, her joyful persona that brightened up any day. 

    MJ noticed and rolled her eyes. She leaned in and whispered to Nina, "Just talk to him."

    She turned to her, startled by her sudden change in conversation. "What?"

     Michelle sent a not-so-subtle nod back to Peter who decided to peer over the side of the boat, watching the reflections of the buildings like there was another whole world underneath the water surface. "Actually talk instead of gazing at each other like you're in some rom-com."

     Nina furrowed her brows, "I do talk to him."

    MJ just sent her a look. She sighed at it and puckered her lips, a little sheepish. Nina's gaze wandered back to Peter and it was hard not to smile. "It's ... it's scary, MJ," she decided to admit. Meeting her gaze again, Nina shrugged. "Last time it didn't end well. What if ... what if this time, he leaves again? Or ..." she couldn't tell her what she was going to say: what if he pushes me away in hopes to keep me safe? 

    Michelle's stern stare faltered for a second, and her cold exterior faded away to show gentle gleam in her dark brown eyes. MJ shrugged as well. "Guess you don't know. You just gotta trust that he won't be a dick this time."

     Trust. Nina trusted Peter with her life. So, why was it so hard to take that step and tell him how she felt all over again? Why was it easier to trust him with her being, than a relationship?

     Because he's also Spider-Man, she told herself. He's great at saving people, but he's horrible at juggling being a superhero and being Peter Parker at the same time. 

     She liked Spider-Man. She liked that side of him. But Nina treasured Peter Parker. She treasured his jokes, his smiles and his comments. The way he chuckled and eagerly helped her study or built Star Wars lego sets with Ned. She liked her best friend she's known since she was little, who just happened to be Spider-Man at the same time. 

     She couldn't have one without the other, she knew that. That wasn't what troubled her. What troubled her was that would she be prepared to make sacrifices for that? 

     Nina couldn't lose somebody else. After the Blip, she wanted to protect everything she had. Her life, her friends, her family, her relationships━all that she had left, knowing how easy it was in their little world for that all to disappear in just five seconds; turn to dust in between her fingertips. 

     She glanced back over the edge as they turned into one of the narrower canals, and as if the world understood her thoughts, she noticed graffiti hidden on the very waters edge: THANOS WAS RIGHT.

      Nina swallowed hard and forced herself to look away. Peter told her that Tony Stark's ghost followed him around━everywhere he looked, he saw him; in pictures, in memorials ... Nina wondered whether the ghost of the five years she missed was following her, too. 

     She turned on her phone, staring at the picture of her and Felicia smiling back at her. 

     (Or maybe it was the ghost of how everything was before).      

     They arrived at their motel, and Nina wasn't impressed. She turned her nose up at the dirty sidewalk and the way it seemed to dip down. The Motel sign was crooked, the windows dirty and covered with webs━and there was a stink to it, and it wasn't like the smell of the canal ... but rather like ... something had died. 

     "Oh ..." grumbled MJ as they stopped in front of it. "Great."

     Mr. Harrington had a far brighter look upon their dingy temporary stay, "Well!" he said with a grin. "Looks like we're here!" He frowned a little at the scaffolding and ripped tarp that hung over the edge. "They're ... doing renovations to the place. Getting some upgrades!"

     Josh slumped against the side of the boat, chin tucking to his chest to say, "Oh, this is trash," to Flash who wholeheartedly agreed, not even finding the courage to video their arrival. 

     Nina shared an incredulous glance with Michelle.

    One by one, they stepped off the boat and onto the narrow pathways by the canal underneath the shadow of the scaffold. Nina let herself be helped off the boat's edge by Peter━she would've blushed if she wasn't too busy focusing on trying not to step in the paint tray left lying about. 

     He shared her disgust, gazing upwards at the motel━and was it sort of slanting towards them? "This is ... gonna be great," muttered Peter. He hadn't let go of her hand. Nina stared at it, and she only just realised how much she missed the feeling of his fingers wrapped around her own. 

    It took her a few seconds to speak, "Oh━uh━yeah!" she forced out a chuckle, doing her best to sound sarcastic. "Love it."

    They shared a small laugh that faded away. Nina pursed her lips, finding herself shy and flustered underneath Peter's gaze. He was still holding her hand. 

     "Get out of the way!" 

     Flash shoved Nina lightly so he could step up onto the landing. She stumbled, letting go of Peter's hand to turn and glare as he danced around the paint trays and buckets, disgusted. "Seriously?" she called after him as he rushed past, wanting to be away from the dirty edges of the canal as fast as possible. 

     Nina soon rolled her eyes. She sent Peter a small, gentle smile that he was enamoured by before joining MJ with the students waiting at the motel entrance. Michelle met Peter's gaze over her shoulder and shook her head. His glance went blank, annoyed at her disappointment. 

     Talk━she mouthed, pointing at Nina when she couldn't see.

     I'm trying! Peter replied with a wild wave of his hands. 

    MJ threw her hands up in defeat and left it there, as if the mere glance of him made her lose all hope in humanity. 

    The students followed their teachers inside the small motel. Nina frowned as she noticed the many planks of wood over tiles that were covered in puddles of old, discoloured water. She balanced along them, wincing as they bended under everyone's weight. 

     Mr. Harrington opened a glass double door to their side, not at all fazed by their murky surroundings. "Everyone!" he said cheerfully. "Here we are!"

     He stepped inside the motel and Nina was met with a smell of old, settled dust and mould. She heard the crone of a cat and as she poked her head around, she could see a ginger-cat licking his paws on top of a picnic table with two chairs. The reception was small, with low hanging dim lights, dusty chairs, shelves with old tourist brochures and a deserted bar by the carpet stairs. It was empty aside from an old couple having their lunch under the shadow of the staircase at a two-seater table, and the reception: a man sat behind a wooden desk, reading a book in a chair leant against a wall filled with clocks. Small clocks, big clocks━clocks with intricate designs on rich wood, others that chimed as hanging bells struck together, and quite a lot of rope ...? 

     Mr. Harrington stepped off the entrance tiles stairs and planted his feet right into the water pooling on the rotten hardwood floors. Nina winced. "Whoa━!"

     The students all huddled around the small landing, frowning at the fools ball table standing with its legs in buckets and the planks of wood━bridges across parts of the room that had become miniature creeks. 

     Flash frowned, horrified, "This place is sinking."

     Mr. Harrington shook the water out of his shoe, "You mean 'charming'."

   "It stinks," stated Betty at Ned's side. 

    "At least there's a cat ... right?" offered Nina hesitantly.

     No one else matched her weak enthusiasm. 

*ೃ༄    

     a/n: the accuracy of the teachers picking a horrible motel to stay at in excursions I-

    I will never forget the experience of having to wear thongs (flip flops) to the shower at the hostel we stayed at in our senior CAPA excursion and seeing used bandaids and tampons. 

     I will also not forget being attacked by my drama, vet and music teachers who had bought nerf guns at the markets. surprise attack. I walked around the corner ... i never saw them coming ... 

    capa teachers ....

    being a favourite to a capa teacher is a sentence to being 'annoyed with kindness' by them constantly ... 

    also this is such a filler i'm sorry.