Clessidra | Peter Parker.

20. promise

"Is he... your father?"

Peter's question might have sounded stupid and obvious from an outside point of view, but it sadly wasn't for three of the four teenagers standing in the hospital room, staring at the unconscious man in front of them.

Considering Simon's age, his father couldn't have been more than sixty, but that man looked more than ninety. His hair were of the purest white, even if only a few of them were still attached to his head. His face was full of deep wrinkles and light brown spots, while his whole body was attached to complicate machineries.

June thought that if she got closer to him, she would actually realize he was indeed alive, even if only thanks to the machineries but, from her spot next to the door, she felt as if she was staring at a dead body.

"He is," Simon replied after an apparently infinite time. He was looking at the old figure in front of him with a mixture of nostalgia and fear that made June's heart clutch in pain.

"How is that possible?" Gwen asked, visibly confused. She knew nothing about their powers, and it only made sense that she was freaking out.

"That's why you weren't supposed to come, Gwen," Peter tried to reach to her, but she barely gave him a stare, her eyes fixed on Simon's father.

"Well, I'm here now-"

"Gwen," June tried not to yell, even if blood was boiling in her veins. "Not now."

It seemed to calm down the blonde, who reached the other end of the room and rested her back on the wall, spending the rest of the time in silence, trying to make sense of the situation.

"What happened?" June asked, carefully placing a hand on Simon's arm. He seemed to relax, but his eyes were still lost somewhere else.

"He had –has, my same powers. I think it's a genetic thing, but I honestly don't care. We've only ever been me and him, my mother died when I was little. When my powers showed up, he did the best he could to help me control them and then, a few months ago, something changed in him. He was always terrified, as if someone was following him everywhere. He was on edge, would react to every single sound with a jump and his eyes would never stop frantically looking around. Then, one day, I found him in his room, unconscious. At first I thought he was dead, but I had a strange feeling he wasn't. Then I remembered an address he gave me in case something happened to him and called. It was this clinic, and they came to take him away. I obviously followed, and came in our school."

June looked back towards Peter, trying to understand what he was thinking, but his face was completely unreadable.

"Why this clinic?" she asked.

"It's for people like us. It only has those who succumbed to their powers and ended up in an endless coma. It was set up to find a cure, since it seems that all of us will fall to it one day or another."

The blood in June's veins turned cold as she moved away from Simon, trying her best to keep a relaxed composure. She thought she could handle it, she thought she was never going to succumb to her powers again. Was it destined to happen from the day she was born? How long was left for her to live?

"It happened to you already," Peter mumbled from behind her. She turned towards him with her eyes watery and he exchanged her an equally distressed look.

"What? Really?" Simon reached her, but June nodded still looking at Peter.

"And... you survived?"

"Seems like it," June chuckled, meeting Simon's stare.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Same reason you didn't tell me about your father."