NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE ∙ Peter Parker

☆ Chapter Fifteen: The Babysitter's Club 2.0

Carson blinked a few times, glancing up. "Yeah, Baby C?"

"Why hasn't anyone asked to speak with me yet? I was closest to him."

Carson stiffened. The question had been on Lizzie's mind for a while. If they were so eager hearing from Sharon, and her sister barely interacted with Steve, why was Lizzie not being interrogated by the higher-ups (like Alexander Pierce, the man she'd learned about yesterday)? She spent the most time with Steve. Fury gave her the job to get close to Steve. She did that...so why was no one coming for her? It didn't make sense.

Maybe they knew she wouldn't tell them anything.

"Don't worry about it," Carson said tight-lipped, giving her a fake smile that Lizzie could see right through. When she went to protest, the woman's face fell and she shook her head. "Don't ask questions, Lizzie. Just...just let us keep you safe, okay? Fury made sure you were protected before he died. Let us continue doing that."

Fury made sure she was protected? What the hell did that mean? Lizzie contemplated whether or not to pry any more, but decided against it when Carson returned back to fiddling with her laptop. Turning around again, Lizzie grabbed another arrow from her quiver and lined it up, the pain gradually burning down her arm feeling nothing like the pain everywhere else.

If she distracted herself from everything, whether that be going down to the training room to hit some things or the weapon's room to practice shooting (escorted by her babysitter of the hour), Lizzie could pretend like everything was somewhat alright. Kind of. Like, she could pretend that she hadn't been obsessively checking her flip-phone to see if Steve got her message. Or that she hadn't been thinking about whether or not he was safe. Or that being in S.H.I.E.L.D. scared her when it never did before. With the way that Carson, Sharon, and Monroe were acting, she felt like they were hiding her from S.H.I.E.L.D. and keeping her presence a secret as much as—but she didn't know why.

None of it made sense to her. She'd asked questions to receive no reply, the looks and the manhunt out for Steve, all of it was raising the red flags and warning signs she'd been taught to look out for over the last few months. But surely, she had to be overreacting right? Surely.

The phone in the pocket of her shorts buzzed, but Lizzie did not hear it that time. For once, she decided not to obsessively check her phone. If she had, she would've seen an important message from the one person she worried about most. This time, he was warning her. This time, he was worried about her.

───○☆ ✸ ☆○───

𝐖𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐓𝐎𝐍, 𝐃.𝐂. ─ 𝐁𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐑𝐎𝐎𝐅𝐓𝐎𝐏

Agent Jasper Sitwell was being thrown forward by Steve Rogers on the rooftop of the building, stumbling on his feet but managing to hold onto his sadistic humor nonetheless. That only made the frustration inside of Steve dig a little deeper into his skin. The last two days had already been eventful enough for him: finding out that S.H.I.E.L.D. was corrupted by HYDRA, he'd essentially died for nothing all those years ago, nearly getting blown up by the agency he used to trust, and—on top of all of that—fighting the nagging worry about a certain thirteen-year-old caught in the crossfire.

Needless to say, he did not have time for niceties. "Tell me about Zola's algorithm."

"Never heard of it," Sitwell dismissed quickly, still smirking as he looked at Steve.