LIAR, LIAR. Peter Parker

two. meet the father

Nina closed her eyes against the pain of that statement, for both of them. Not just for her, but for Peter as well. "I need time to process this... we both need time to process this, and he told me that it would be worth it in the end. Cause it'll make us stronger."

He saw the unreadable emotions on her face and he spoke almost without thinking. "How did you do it? How did you go on after....after Tony....died?" he asked.

She took a deep breath, allowing herself to recall the pain of that time. "I'm not yet there. But my dad told me that it would happen eventually. Slowly....one day at a time. I know that sounds like a cliche but it's true."

Peter shut his eyes. If he focused hard enough, he could feel the delicate, almost hesitant skate of Nina's fingers over his skin.

One day at a time.

...

NINA WOKE UP feeling like a giant mess, her thoughts fighting their way through a thick fog to make it to the surface, and her stomach rolling with the bad decisions of the night before.

Piercing through it all was the soft sound of a hand knocking on her bedroom door. The girl briefly considered burrowing under her pillow to avoid the sound, but she knew that it wouldn't stop until she answered it.

"It's Peter," the voice calls out before she could even move a single muscle. After a short beat of silence, he quickly adds, "Can I come in?"

"Sure," A cold shiver ran down Nina's body, awakening her other senses and pulling her out of her inebriated state. Squinting her eyes to get rid of the blurry lines, her mind took three quick seconds to go from a sort of calm state into a panicked one - just as Peter stepped into the room.

The first thing she realizes is that Peter is showing a lot of skin - a lot. The teenager was literally standing there, on her white doorframe, half naked and sweatpants hanging low on his hips.

For a moment, her brain short circuits, and she's thrown into a sense of deja vu when she recounts the events that had happened almost two years ago - when she broke into his apartment to kill him. He's buffer, way more buff than the last time she's seen him shirtless, and it breaks her brain just a little bit.

Until she's thrown back into reality: Peter Parker is shirtless, in her apartment - and based on the many many sitcoms she's watched over the course of six months, that's the first thing she thinks of.

A loud gasp ripped from her throat, and she pulled her body from under the covers before tumbling gracelessly off the bed. When she realized that these weren't the clothes she wore last night, the panic surged onto her head. No. No.

"Peter!" The girl hisses, grabbing the blankets to cover her clothes - despite being dressed reasonable, in a pajama set that didn't fit together. "I wasn't... I was— you... you're shirtless?"

Peter looked tired. As if he hadn't slept. The boy blinked twice, the gears turned, and they turned and turned - until he realized why Nina looked so panic stricken.

"I didn't!" he immediately reassured her, shaking his hear desperately. "When I brought you in you pushed me and told me to 'stick on the ceiling' or something while you change. You couldn't walk properly so I helped you wash your face and brush your teeth but that was it."

"You're shirtless!" Nina shot back, covering her eyes. (Peter saw the small gap between her fingers, he was also aware of the fact that Nina was eyeing him but he wouldn't say anything.) "Put a shirt on, you man-whore! Why are you even shirtless?"