TROUBLE, peter parker

ix. boyfriend shmoyfriend

"Whoa, where'd you get that bruise from?" Gwen asked.

Maya glanced at her and dropped her hand from putting in her lock combination to gesture it around and make some excuse. "I tripped."

"Has your dad looked at it?"

"Right after I crashed face first, yep."

Gwen nodded, though it was no secret that she was suspicious of her answer. Maya turned back to attend to her locker. The bruise was most likely from falling flat on her face after cutting herself out of the web.

Her confrontation with Spider-Man had ended when someone came into the building after hearing the commotion. They fled before the lights were even turned on, but Maya still hadn't figured out as much about the guy as she wanted to.

"Hey, you like branzino, right?" asked Gwen.

Maya turned to look at her with furrowed eyebrows. "It's alright. Why?"

"My mom's making branzino," she said. "I mentioned you once, and they wanted to invite you."

"Uhh, I mean, I'm free today," said Maya.

Gwen squinted at her. "But ...?"

Maya moved her mouth around to get the brain to do the speaking thing and she added her hands in as well.

"No, yeah, that's a really good point," said Gwen.

Maya gave her a deadpan expression. "Your dad scares me," she blurted out.

"What?" Gwen said. "He's not scary."

"Obviously not to you, but that's because you're his offspring."

"You used to come over all the time," she said.

Maya finally pulled one book out of her locker, having been distracted that whole time, but who knew when she would pull out a second.

"Yeah, and then I stopped talking to you for, like, two years and he probably thinks there's animosity between us and obviously he'll take your side."

"He knows what happened," she said. "He's understanding."

Maya pursed her lips and nodded. "Right," she said. She looked down at where her backpack was before shaking her head and looking back at Gwen. "Uh, but also, I used to come over when I barely had a personality and therefore wasn't really scared of authorities and scary adults."

A small laugh escaped Gwen's lips. "That's an original excuse."

"It's not an excuse, it's a real thing," said Maya, her eyes widening a bit and causing Gwen to laugh more. "And the stuff about the PI thing and his opinion on it kinda scared me more."

"We'll keep the conversation away from that," she said.

Maya gave her a look, saying Seriously? "There are only so many dinner topics."

"Under which private investigators would not fall under."

"There's politics," said Maya, counting one finger. She counted another, "work—and that includes his work and my work—" she counted another finger. She added one more just for measure "—and hobbies."

"Fine," said Gwen. "How about we invite someone else so you're not the only one experiencing my father's wrath?"

"What? If you can find someone else who'd want to, I'm down, but who else would that be?"

Gwen shrugged as she looked around the hallway. "Didn't you go out with Jason Ionello a few days ago? Why not him?"

"Why him?" Maya said. "I think that would make your father more wrathful against me."