𝙨𝙞𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙧 𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜 ➪ 𝘱𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘹𝘪𝘮𝘰𝘧𝘧

.07

The shock at seeing Pietro knocked the breath out of her, and it took a moment for her to respond. Was he being serious? No, of course not. She could tell by the stupid grin on his face. he couldn't be serious.

"What?" Spencer scoffed, trying to control her breathing. Her eyes narrowed and she pulled a face. "No."

Pietro didn't buy it. He gave her a stupid toothy grin that put the white fluorescent lights to shame. He leaned forward as he pressed on, "Did you mention me?"

"Absolutely not," Spencer shot back, her arms crossing her arms over her chest. "Kinda conceited of you to assume I would. Isn't it?"

The words came out harsher that Spencer had intended. Her mom's warnings against anger and aggression were ringing in her ear, but her mom was a peace-loving, tree hugger and she had never seen the stupid blue eyes and an annoying smirk that belonged to Pietro Maximoff.

It was just something about Pietro that triggered the emotion in her. Like she was constantly angry and defensive against him, even when she had no reason to be.

And she had only known the guy a day or whatever, so you know, great.

But it didn't seem to phase him, his grin barely faltering. Her anger didn't seem to bother him at all. Spencer couldn't tell if it was a relief or irritating.

"Who was it?" he pressed, his eyebrows raising. "A boyfriend? Were you telling your boyfriend about me?"

"It wasn't my boyfriend," Spencer defended, rolling her eyes as he let out a laugh. In an afterthought, she added, "And I wasn't talking about you."

His eyes met hers.

She felt pressured to answer, "I was talking about this place in general."

He didn't stop looking at her. It was making her anxious.

She rushed to add, "I didn't say anything specific."

"You get startled very easily," Pietro noted, his grin only widening as he leaned against the wall.

"I'm not startled," Spencer defended, glaring over at him from her spot in the middle of the hallway. "I'm annoyed."

"Ah," Pietro remarked, "That's reassuring."

Spencer rolled her eyes, looking for a way out of this hallway. But she didn't even know the direction back to the dormitory section of the compound.

As much as Spencer wanted to run from this conversation, Pietro seemed very interested in keeping it alive. He pressed his back against the wall, peering his eyes over at Spencer.

"Tell me," he said, his stupid smirk fading just a little, as his voice dropped the slightest bit to ask, "what are you hiding?"

Spencer blinked. Her brain scrambled for words before she had even processed the question itself - hiding? She wasn't hiding anything! If anything, Pietro was hiding things from her - what's with all this hate on Bruce?

"We all have deep secrets here," he pressed, narrowing his eyes as he tilted his head. "Even Banner."

Here we go again. Spencer didn't say anything but didn't break her eyes from his, searching for some kind of explanation.

She couldn't find any, and broke her eyes away, chasing her breath back after a moment. She hadn't even realized it abandoned her.

Pietro noticed this and seemed to enjoy his effect. He leaned aggravatingly closer. "So," he drew out, "What's yours?"

Despite the freezing cold temperature of the building, Spencer could feel her cheeks growing. Again with those stupid comments about her dad being mad. She hadn't seen a single sign of it at any point in her life, but especially not the past few days - he was nice and polite to everyone. He was quiet.

But Pietro had that stupid know-it-all look and Spencer was well aware she didn't know enough about her dad to know if it was really stupid, or maybe more real than she wanted to acknowledge.

Spencer shoved her phone in her pocket, tightening her jaw as she said, "You know, I really hate confrontation, but this is getting annoying -"

But he wasn't going to stop - her irritation was only pushing him on. "What happens, hm?" he urged, his seeing blue eyes forcing her attention on him. "When you get angry?"

It shouldn't have, not when she was trying so hard to not lose her temper, but something about Pietro's question triggered something in the girl.

Spencer's mind shot back to her mother and her childhood in Kansas.

"You can't control them, but you can always control yourself. Nothing ever gets done properly by an angry man, you hear that?"

"Nothing," Spencer said, thinking of her mother's words. She shook her head for extra effect. "Nothing happens."

Pietro's smirk was gone. It was replaced by an incomprehensible expression, one that Spencer couldn't read as good or bad.

She didn't need to. She just needed to get out of there - and away from the only person, she'd met who thrived off of her agitation.

And with that, Spencer shoved past Pietro Maximoff and set off down the hall.

In the totally wrong direction, of course.

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journal entry #5

i am not the type of person who feeds off of mass anxiety or irritation, but I'm definitely on the giving end of both of those.