Lonely Hearts ▷ Peter Parker | ✓

23 - WELCOME BACK

She groaned and faced forward, looking up at the sky. "I'm sorry, Flash. That's awful, I'm so sorry."

He shrugged stiffly. "Whatever. Harry's got a boyfriend, so that's fun."

She shrieked again, but this time he was prepared, wincing slightly before focusing his attention back onto the road. He was still tense, shoulders up to his ears at this point.

"Who?" she asked, though not as excited as she would have been if he hadn't told her that he and Gwen had broken up first.

Flash laughed, shaking his head. "I wanna say you wouldn't believe it, but let's be real, they're both blonde, rich, and hot."

"Who?" she demanded, sounding more like an owl than an actual teenager, "Tell me!"

Flash smirked, sighing in disbelief. "Johnny. Freaking. Storm. As in the Human Torch. He complimented my car, Diana."

"I called it!" she cheered, her leg jerking and kicking the underside of the car, earning herself a glare for her troubles. It didn't faze her, however, and she continued celebrating, remembering her brief encounter with the boy all those months ago. "I knew it, I knew they would date!"

Flash raised an eyebrow, but thankfully didn't ask his question; Diana didn't need to explain how her not-date with Peter went. At the thought of the boy, her stomach clenched and she bit her lip, trying to keep from asking how he was doing.

"I don't have any news on your boyfriend if that's what you're wondering," Flash said curtly, "And I really don't want to know anything about how his summer is going, so don't even try to tell me."

She shrugged. "I wouldn't really know what to tell you." He was just going around as Spider-Man every day and texting Happy Hogan who was supposed to be relaying his messages to Tony Stark, no big deal.

"What do you mean?" Flash asked, now concerned, "What, have you not been talking to him either? You cut off contact with everyone here? Did you even want to come back?"

"Of course I wanted to come back!" she shouted, though she wasn't so sure of her words, "And timezones made it hard, Flash, you know, sometimes I just didn't feel like socializing."

Her last line caused him to back off, nodding understandingly. "Okay. Okay, yeah, that's fair, I get it." He tapped on the steering wheel, turning on his turn signal and changing lanes.

"You wanna call him?" Flash asked, handing her his phone, "Don't eat up my battery, just say hi or something."

She smiled tightly and took the phone from him, though her own was sitting in her pocket. She found that his number was in Flash's contact already and simply pressed the call button, raising the phone up to her ear.

Just as it was about to go to voicemail, she heard a familiar voice on the other end. "F-Flash?"

"Hey, Bugs," she said, just loud enough to be heard over the roar of the wind, "Just wanted to let you know I'm home. How are you?"

"I'm good," the boy replied, "I'm currently on a fire escape, so..."

Her heart leapt. "Is it...?"

"No, sorry, I'm in Queens," he replied, "Though, I mean, I could drop by tonight to say hi. Not for long, though. If you want."

She smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, I would like that."

"Okay. I gotta get home before Aunt May notices I'm gone. I'll talk to you later." She heard his voice become muffled, probably by his mask over his mouth.

"Okay. Bye, Bugs."

"Bye, Diana."

As she hung up, she pretended that instead of Diana, he had called her doc, the way he usually did. Since he had his mask over his mouth, he might have said doc and she misheard it. She was grasping for straws, but she wanted to believe it more than anything else in the world. She missed him calling her doc. It had been so long.