Eloquence and Twisted Fate

Chapter 4: Falling is easy. Staying is the hard part.

When the clock ran down, the remaining creatures faded from my sight. I ripped off the visor and found myself standing in the middle of an intricate spiderweb that filled the room. I glanced over at Fury, who was standing by the door.

"Not bad." He said, watching me with a calculating eye.

"Not bad?"

"Well, you'll certainly be a valuable addition to the team. But... you still could be better. We'll start training next week, when the rest of them get here."

"The rest of them? You're assembling the Avengers?"

"Like I said earlier, we have enough for a team now."

I felt a thrill in the pit of my stomach. "Awesome!" I said. "Is that it for today?"

"I believe so. You have school tomorrow?"

"Yeah."

"Fine. Everyone's arriving on Saturday. Excuse me for asking, but when are you going to tell them your identity?"

"Oh, I don't know. There's really no point in hiding it from my teammates, is there?"

"My thoughts exactly."

The next day at school, Max confronted me. "You and Connor broke up?"

I sighed. "No, we didn't. He just didn't agree with one of my choices. Where'd you hear that from?"

"Haley told me. What'd you do that he didn't like?"

I looked around to make sure that nobody was listening. "I may or may not have joined the Avengers..."

"What? But Spiderman didn't join the Avengers in the movies!"

"Since when am I following in his footsteps?" I ignored his blatant ignorance of the much larger portion of the marvel universe- the comics- where Spiderman was a member of the Avengers.

"Oh yeah, that's right," he said, his voice carrying with it some venom. "You ignored the person you're supposed to be with in favor of a two-sided jerk with management problems who won't let you be your own person."

"Give it up, Max. On the contrary, you're the person who's more likely to hold me back. Anyways, it's too late for me to turn my back on him. If he doesn't want to be my boyfriend anymore, then I'll just go solo."

"I thought you said you didn't break up."

"Because we didn't. That's final. Goodbye, Max."

He glowered, stomping away. I realized that several people were watching the end of our fight, and I smiled sadly before walking away.

Later that day, Desiree invited me to go out with Alexander and a few of the others for milkshakes and a movie, and I agreed without any hesitation. Maybe it would take my mind off the many issues I had.

"Paige!" She squealed when I met them at the diner. "I'm so glad you came! Oh, we're going to have so much fun!"

Alexander and the others laughed. "Jesus, Desiree, calm down! It's just a movie and some ice cream!"

"Yeah, but school is over in a few days and it's almost summertime! I can't help but be in high spirits." She said, grinning embarrassedly. Her temperament had done a complete turn around- not towards me, but to others as well. I guess miracles do happen occasionally.

The movie was surprisingly good and not a romance or chick flick like I was expecting. It was an action/sci-fi film like a lot of movies are these days and I was having a good time with my friends and starting to convince myself I didn't need Max or Connor in my life to be happy when a waiter came up to me and gave me an envelope. "From the gentleman behind you."