flicker // peter parker

- good friends, bad liars -

Both still staring at sleepy Elenora stand up and pry her eyes open, they nodded.

Jade muttered, "So this is why we've never had a sleepover."

Ned just continued nodded.

Peter knew the library pretty well. Sure, he had done countless class projects and reading assignments here, but he knew it better than anyone. When he had first joined Tony, his sleep intake plummeted quickly. Every free period he had, he found asleep in the library; he knew every comfortable nook and every quiet cranny, and for the first time, he was about to share that information with someone else. 

"Come here," he said softly, pulling Elenora into a comfortable chair, and making sure she didn't fall out of it before he sat down in the once next to her.

Peter assumed that she must have knocked out pretty quickly, because she said nothing after he pulled away, and she stayed silent as he tugged out his book.

About half a minute into reading, Elenora made some sort of noise that prompted Peter to look back at her; unlike her usual way of sleeping, Elenora was curled into a ball like formation, her head tucked in and her feet up on the cushion.

And her hand was outstretched for Peter's, and he sucked in a breath before placing his hand in hers.

Peter stayed that way the entire period: one hand on his book, one in Elenora's hand.

It took Elenora a minute to fall asleep, and catch up on all the rest she'd been missing out at during the night.

***

Surprisingly, Bridgit was handling everything well.

"Everything" as in the SHIELD wide announcement that a fifteen-year-old girl can't swim, video footage of her drowning going, what felt like her, viral, and the betrayal of one of her own teammates as they stood aside as she struggled to breathe.

Finding herself early to practice, Bridgit decided she might as well roam around the towers; she figured that even if she did get lost and was late for training, no one was going to blame her. Not after she almost died, anyway.

As much as she used it to her reasoning, Bridgit hated pity. That's why she hates crying. That's why she hated not being able to swim - because it made her cry which got her pity. Her lack of ability had never bothered her before; when there were lake days at the institute, she'd stay at the shallow end. Connor never really participated in any of that, so Bridgit never had any reason to feel stressed out.

But now, as she messed around with loose bolts and screws in a spare lab, Bridgit felt stressed out. Because now, she was probably the weakest of all of her team; she was used as bait during the first simulation.

The easiest simulation and she was a damsel in distress.

That phrase aggravated her, and even though it came from her own mind, Bridgit slammed the handle full of metal against the lab table, barely noticing the sharp intake of breath from behind her.

Barely, but she wasn't completely a damsel in distress.

Her head spun around as quickly as it could, her hair hitting her face before she tugged it away to get a better view of the person in the doorway.

Lo and behold, in all of his brooding and dark aura, Harley.

"I didn't know anyone was in here," he stated bluntly, and Bridgit turned back around, assuming her previous position, not wanting to show that she was in any way going to change anything she was doing just because he showed up.