✓ | the greatest ⇢ peter parker

twenty

"YES, AUNT MAY." The exhaustion in Peter's voice was evident as Malea sat down, listening to the phone conversation he was having with his aunt. She could even slightly overhear Aunt May's voice coming out of the speaker of his phone, asking things like 'you have your books, right?' or 'make sure not to starve yourself'. All things that a concerned parent would probably ask.

Even 10 minutes later, the conversation was still going on, and Malea was sure that Peter was beyond fed up with his overprotective aunt. He sighed, "You know, Aunt May, you've asked me more questions than I've ever been asked in my entire life. Trust me when I say that I'm fine." A couple of minutes later, the conversation ended, with Peter breathing a seriously exasperated 'I love you' into the phone'.

Peter stuffed his phone into his pocket, then looking over at Malea, who was absentmindedly playing with the edge of her short fingernails.

"Sorry you had to hear that," he called out, attracting Malea's attention away from her fingernails and onto him.

"Don't worry about it, your aunt is just worried." She returned as she hopped from her seat and back up onto her feet.

"By the way Peter, I got a text from Tony. He said it's nearly time to go, so you should probably, umm, what should i say-"

"Suit up?" Peter suggested.

Malea nodded. "That's the word. So yeah, you know where your new suit is, right?" Peter replied a quick 'yes' before scurrying away to his room, and coming back a bit later.

When he returned to where Malea, the first thing she saw was Peter's endless struggle in trying to get himself comfortable in the suit. His arms wiggled around multiple times as he tried getting the stretchy fabric into a place where he didn't feel compressed.

Malea, who was watching Peter in the opposite position, had her arms folded on top of each other and trying to hold her sniggers in. Peter did look quite amusing.. it was entertaining watching him having a soundless argument with the red and blue spandex. Well, the only sound there was, was that of the elastic material being stretched.

"You doing okay there, Spider-Man?" Malea said, the slightest snigger escaping her mouth.

"It's- so- tight-," Peter replied stiffly, walking towards Malea. "I honestly feel like this is worse than those corset-things posh people had to wear back then." He finally stopped trying to adjust himself, and looked to Malea, "at least this web-slinger is one easy thing to use."

The minute his hand touched the trigger of the web-slinger, it's fluid jumped directly onto Malea- spreading all across her face, her slightly waved brown hair as well as her neck and jumper. She stood still, slightly shocked at her current state.

Peter pointed a shortened finger at her, "Did I just-" without needing to finish his sentence, Malea nodded rapidly, still frozen on the spot.

"Can you pass me the towel, the one right there?" With her eyes squeezed shut, she pointed over towards the small hand towel on the chair. Peter hurriedly snatched the towel and handed it to her. Malea wiped herself, throwing the now-gooey towel into the bin.

"S-sorry about that. I think I need some time to get used to this suit..."

"Well, there's no time for that. Tony just told me that he and Alex are ready on the roof, and that I need to get you and Holland."

"Sure thing... hey, is that my sweater? The one I gave you when you were out in the rain?" Peter asked, his eyes looking towards the slightly web-by sweater Malea was wearing.

"You mean at the time when you had that really pathetic-looking suit?" Malea grinned, trying to annoy Peter. "Then yeah, it is. Guess I forgot to return it to you.."

"Nah, don't worry about it. You can keep it." Peter smiled.

Holland entered the room with her light footsteps, her manicured hand bearing her bow and arrow. "I'm ready." She said, her voice hard.

Peter whispered to Malea, "This has suddenly gotten really serious... is it time to be serious?" Malea nodded in a way that said 'I guess so'.

"Have you got your weapons?" Holland asked her sister.

Malea presented a hand, with fire burning on the top "Do I need them?"

"Fair enough. Let's go."

As they reached the roof, they saw that the jet was waiting there. Holland walked up the platform and into it, but as Peter was about to step onto the ramp, he felt something drag his wrist bag, and found that it was Malea's hand.

Malea tug his wrist towards her, "Hey, can I speak to you for a second.."

Peter turned around to face Malea, "Sure.. is everything fine?"

     She smiled a stiff smile. "Yeah. Just, okay. Up until two months ago, you saved my life, more than once, and I hadn't even known who you were. Back then, I probably wouldn't have cared if you'd have gone into this fight or not. Now that we've spent all this time with each other, I can't help but just.. I'm worried for you, Peter. And I know that you can take care of yourself, but please, when you're fighting out there.. keep us in mind. Me, Aunt May, Holland.. even Tony, for heavens sake. I don't know what he would do if something happened to you out there. I don't know what I would do if something happened."

     Peter spent no spare second of looking at Malea and ran her into an embrace. She got caught off-guard slightly, but nonetheless, she hugged him back, resting her soft hands around his neck.

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whoo here we are with chapter 20 and a heartfelt malea&peter moment 💐