flicker // peter parker

- a targeted duo -

Squinting, Elenora demanded, "But how could they possibly blame that on you? That's a natural disaster, isn't it?"

I'm a natural disaster, Connor thought, but he said something totally different: "That's my dad's mutation. Controlled shifting of tectonic plates."

It took Elenora a moment to connect everything together; the phone call, the attack, her being "at risk"- Devon was after her. Elenora didn't know what he wanted or how he was gonna get it, but someone with considerable ability to harm her was out there and tracking her down- and his son was standing in the middle Elenora's kitchen.

Elenora grabbed her phone off the counter where she had placed it when she first walked in. As she pressed on Steve's contact, she walked passed Connor, who grabbed her wrist.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his eyes wide and filled with worry, but Elenora shook his grip off. The last time he had done that, Elenora's fist had connected with his nose. But this was so much different than that time- this was Elenora's turf. This wasn't emotions anymore, this was safety.

"Calling my dads," she told him, her eyes pleading for him to let her (not that she needed permission). Connor held her stare, but then looked to the ground as the dial tone played.

Her dads were gonna hate him, and Connor couldn't decide which was worse- the fact that his dad was after their daughter or that he just broke into their house. Stealing one more look at Elenora, whose lip was tucked between her teeth in fear, he truly believed that her dads may just kill him. Connor thought that maybe he deserved it; this was all his fault. He looked back at Elenora.

More his fault than she knew.

Connor promised himself that he'd be completely honest with Elenora, and he planned to do that- but she hadn't given him time. Now he'd have to wait until she was off the phone to say the worst.

"Sweetheart?" Steve answered. "Is everything okay?"

Maybe it's best I tell her after the call, so her dads don't come with the idea of killing me.

"Dad, I need you at home," she said. Her words were plain, and her voice shallow. Connor almost bought into the idea that it was just a girl who needed something to eat, but Steve knew it was more; Elenora only spoke like that when she was scared. Terrified, actually.

"We're coming," Steve said immediately, and the line went dead.

Elenora looked at Connor, and then back at the phone in her hand. Just by her expression, Connor could tell something had occurred to her, and in two seconds, Elenora was going through the phone's messages and checked the date.

"That message was left three days ago," Elenora said. Her and her dads never even checked that phone- it was likely that if not for Elenora's curiosity, she would have never even know that the school was attacked. Devon could have found her. Then there was another concern, "Wait, where is everybody?"

"The professors split up the kids," Connor explained. "Each took a group to a safe house. They're all over the country, by now," Connor spectated, his eyes drifting over to the window as a passing car drove by, but as Elenora formed another question, his eyes flickered back to her.

"And you didn't go with them?"

Connor shook his head.

"Then where have you been for the last three days?" Elenora questioned, but it felt like she already knew the answer.

"Your suit's pretty badass," he joked, but he didn't look up from his hands to see the unamused expression on Elenora's face until he said, "don't dig the whole 'sidekick' thing, though."