I Am Karen - Spider-Man / Peter Parker [1]

Chapter Twenty-Seven - It's Begun

It was a clear day with the sun shining but that did not change the fact that sitting in one of the common yellow school buses Midtown owned, early in the morning was not comfortable. The cheap bus seats were hard but Maria sat on them none the less. The school had organised a field trip out to MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art). Of course, Maria had been pulled into sharing a seat with Michelle behind Peter and Ned.

Maria noticed that Peter had placed his forearm on the chair in front of him and was resting his head against the arm, allowing him to turn his head towards Ned and also sneak looks at her and Michelle. But the only reason she knew that he was doing that was because she was sneaking looks every now and again herself.

The truth was Maria was highly frustrated by her situation. Ever since Homecoming Maria had begun to notice her own feelings and consequential actions towards Peter. How she hadn't noticed her feelings earlier was beyond her? She held the boy in high regard; his intelligence, his humour and kindness capturing her attention as well as his good looks. She had detected that she smiled more around him and wanted to be around him.

Issue was she didn't know if he wanted to be around her in the same fashion.

Though Michelle certainly thought so and she had the evidence to back it. Peter and Maria certainly had grown closer ever since Homecoming. The pair spent a lot of time together especially considering that Maria knew about him being Spider-Man so it was not surprising to find Peter in his Spider-Man suit having a conversation with Maria at the top one of the many tall buildings of New York.

In fact, Ned, Peter, Michelle and Maria had their friendship becoming quite strong. The only issue was Michelle hadn't been informed of Peter's alter ego which did cause some tension but Michelle always chalked it up to the same thing - Peter and Maria's "undying love" for one another, a nickname Maria hated very much. A part of Maria wanted to tell Michelle but she knew it was not her secret to tell so she kept her mouth shut.

The bus journey was dragging due to the traffic of New York but it was about to get interesting. Michelle and Maria were on their phones one moment before Michelle piped up with a harsh whisper which caused Maria's eyes to widened in shock.

"Peter likes you and is planning on telling you." Michelle had said this before so that was not what shocked Maria, it was the fact that Peter was right in front of them and he had super-hearing! Maria was in a very awkward position she didn't want to ignore her friend but she was also aware that Peter very much could be listening.

"We are not going over this again" Maria whispered back, her eyes flickering to Peter who she found was quite stiff. His frozen form told Maria that he had indeed heard and was listening. "Michelle you have said he has liked me a thousand times and I still point out that he took Liz to Homecoming." All the time her eyes were on the boy in front of her, this was a dangerous situation to say the least for Maria - she didn't want Peter to know about her feelings.

"I overheard him talking to Ned about it" Michelle explained, her voice dropping slightly seeing her best friend's reaction. "Yes, he does but he doesn't know what to do about it especially considering your Tony Stark's daughter. He knows he only gets one shot at it and isn't certain about how to tell you." Maria still found her words unlikely and that clearly showed and Michelle noticed. "Oh, come on, you have to have noticed that he keeps watching you, keeps walking beside you or sitting beside you in class, or always smiles when he sees you ... in much the same way you do worth him."

"Shut up" Maria hissed, her eyes purposefully flickering to Peter. Michelle looked at Maria before she looked at Peter, she understood what Maria was getting at but clearly Michelle wasn't bothered.