I feel the truck shake to a stop, and I regain consciousness. I slowly open my eyes and wait for them to adjust to the darkness.
"Oh, my head." I hear Peter groan beside me.
"You appear to have a mild concussion," Suit Lady says to Peter.
I sit up, groaning. Peter hears me looks at me, the eyes of his mask widening.
"Gracee?!" He stands and helps me up. "What happened to you?"
"I passed out... again."
"Are you okay?"
"Never been better."
"Where are we right now?" he asks Suit Lady.
"I'm not sure. The container walls are hindering my sensors," she answers.
"Wait a minute. They must have hijacked the truck and taken us to their evil lair. Okay, Gracee. We're gonna have to fight our way out of this one." Peter prepares himself to burst through the trailer's metal doors. "Three, two, one!"
I watch as he starts running towards the trailer door. Right before he smashes through it, I blast it away with my powers.
"Oh, thanks," Peter says.
"No problem." I smile.
We run out of the trailer and look around at the inside of the huge warehouse. Turns out, we aren't in an evil lair.
"What is this place?" Peter asks.
"Friday, where are we?"
"The most secure facility on the Eastern Seaboard. The Damage Control Deep Storage Vault."
"Seriously?" Peter and I groan at the same time.
He runs to the wall that opens horizontally from the middle and climbs up to the part that separates. He tries to pry it open, but it doesn't budge.
"The door will most likely remain closed until morning," says Suit Lady.
I walk to the wall and kick the bottom impatiently. "Morning?"
Peter jumps down and walks past me, shooting a web and attaching it to two different storage containers. I realize that it looks kind of like a hammock.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"Well, if we have to wait until morning, why not get comfortable? I can make one for you to, if you want."
I run and jump, climbing on top of a storage container. "I'll be fine up here."
"Okay, suit yourself."
Peter continues making a web hammock, and I try to get comfortable on top of the storage container. I lay on my stomach and then look at Peter, who has the backpack.
"Hey, can I have your backpack?"
"Sure." He throws it to me, and I get out my book. "Of course your brought your book."
I smile at the sound of his laugh. "You got a problem with that, Parker?"
"Yeah, maybe I do, Stark."
"I wouldn't be surprised if you brought a book, too."
"And what makes you think you know me so well?"
I pull out another book, which just so happens to be Peter's, and he laughs. "You got me."
When he finishes his hammock, he lays in it, swinging from side to side. I read my book, and eventually, I am in my own world.
"Hey, Suit Lady, I kind of feel bad calling you 'Suit Lady,' you know? I think I should probably give you a name."
"What about Karen?" I ask, not looking up from my book.
"Karen?" Peter asks Suit Lady.
"You can call me Karen, if you would like."
Eventually, Peter decides to read while hanging upside down, with a web between his feet, suspending him from the ceiling. I turn over, laying on my back, wishing I had a pillow.
"A new true crime podcast has been released on Spotify. Would you like to listen?" F.R.I.D.A.Y asks me.
"Uh, yeah. Thanks, Friday."
"Hey, Karen, what else can this suit do?" Peter asks.
Karen doesn't respond, and wings expand from his arms. "Woah."
"I told Dad to add that. I thought it would be cool."
"Well, you were right."
A while later, Peter decides to run the refresher course, and I practice my powers. I practice simple things, like reading Peter's mind and sending him messages through my mind. To gain better control, I also attempt to manipulate different shapes out of my dark energy. When we both get bored of this, we lay beside each other on top of the truck load, looking up at the ceiling.
"It's just so hard, ya know? With school, academic decathlon practice, and then patrolling as Spider-Man, while also keeping my secret from everyone. It's... it's a lot."
"Yeah, I get that. I have to keep my secret from the world, but it's easier for me because... well, the people I love the most already know. So other people not knowing doesn't bother me as much as it would to be lying to my family."
"It still has to be hard for you, though. I mean, no one else even knows your real name. I'm only hiding a part of me. You have to hide everything. Your name, your family, your home, and your powers."
"Yeah, but I've been doing it my whole life. I'm used to it. Well, hiding everything but my powers. That's still pretty new."
"Yeah. You're so easy to talk to, Gracee. I've never talked to anyone like this. And I, like, just met you yesterday."
"That means a lot, Peter. You're really easy to talk to, too." I smile at him.
"Hey, how long have we been here anyways?" Peter asks.
"37 minutes," F.R.I.D.A.Y and Karen answer at the same time.
"37 minutes?!" Peter and I say in unison.
"That's insane. I cannot take this anymore. I gotta... I gotta get out of here," Peter says.
"You and me both," I groan.
We both get up and jump to the ground. Peter searches through Vultures bag, pulling out a wheel shaped piece of metal.
"Nope." He throws the scrap metal to the side, before pulling out an Ultron head. "That's awesome."
"Well, not if Ultron almost killed you."
"True." Peter throws it on the floor and picks up another glowy thing that looks just like the one we found. "Ah, hey, it's like the glowy thing."
"That glowy thing is an explosive Chitauri energy core," says Karen.
"A WHAT?!" I yell.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! You mean, we've been carrying around a bomb?"
"It would require radiation to transform it into an explosive state," Karen explains.
Peter gets out his phone and tries to call Ned, but he has no service. "No, no, no, no, no."
We both run to the wall and he climbs up the warehouse doors, banging on them. "Hey! Please! Please, somebody, let us out! Hey! Karen, you have to help me override that time lock."
Peter hangs upside down from the ceiling next to the time lock beside to the doors. He opens the lock panel and starts putting in numbers, holding a notepad and pen.
"Okay, Karen. Lower the voltage and run it."
"Trial unsuccessful."
"Okay, we're just gonna have to try every sequence."
I close my eyes and concentrate, trusting my intuition power to tell me the sequence to the doors. Suddenly, it comes to me.
"Peter! It's 070717."
"What? How do you know?"
"Just trust me!"
Peter puts the code in and the warehouse doors open. He jumps down and runs to me, placing his hands on my hips and picking me up, spinning me around.
"You're amazing!" he exclaims.
"I know." I smile.
He puts me down and we both run out of the room. We jump on the back of a trailer truck and ride on top of it out of the warehouse.
"Karen! You have to get us to Decathlon as fast as possible."
"Sure thing."
"Where is it?" I ask.
"It's right across the street from the Washington monument," he answers.
Peter tries to call Ned, but he doesn't pick up. He leaves a voicemail, and I can only hope that Ned has his phone with him.
"Ned, call me back, the glowy thing is a bomb!"
"There is a vehicle approaching on your right."
We jump onto the truck, listening to Karen. When the truck goes to turn in the wrong direction, we jump onto an SUV.
"Peter, people are going to see my face!"
"We can't let that happen! You have to stay here."
"That is not happening, I'll figure something out."
A bus passes us and we jump onto it. Finally, Ned calls Peter back, and I sigh in relief.
"Oh, Ned, you're alive!"
"Peter, are you okay?"
"Ned, Ned, where's the glowy thing, the glowy thing?"
"Don't worry, it's safe. It's in my backpack."
"No, Ned, listen! No, no, Ned, the glowy thing is dangerous."
"You missed the Decathlon. I covered for you."
"Ned, listen to me!"
"We're at the Washington Monument now. You gotta-"
"Peter, is that you?" I hear Liz's voice on the other end.
"Oh, hey, Liz," Peter says as we jump off of the bus and start running to the monument as fast as we can. "Please put Ned back on the phone."
"You freak! You are so lucky we won. You know, I want to be mad, but I'm more worried. Like, what is going on with you?"
"Liz, I have to talk to Ned. It's really important!"
"Miss, all items on the belt, please," a security lady says in the background.
"Liz, there's something in Ned's backpack! It's really dangerous. Don't let it go through an X-ray." There is no response on the other end. "Liz? Liz! Damn it."
"It's okay, we'll get there in time!"
"Gracee, I can't ask you to do this."
"You're not asking me to do anything. I made the choice to come here by myself."
"But people will figure out who you are!"
"Actually, I have an idea. Do you know the movie Cinderella?"
"Yeah..."
"Well, in the movie, the Fairy God Mother puts a spell on Cinderella so that other people can see her face, but they don't know who she is. It's like they can't connect her face to her identity, even if they have seen her before."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that maybe I can do something like that. I can set the intention that no one other than the people that know my secret can recognize me in the energy I've created, and then I can absorb that energy."
"Okay, I'm going to be honest, I understood none of that. But I think you should go for it. I need you, Gracee."
I'm thankful for the fact that my face is flushed from running, so Peter can't see that I'm blushing. I create a ball of energy, repeating my intention over and over again in my head, trying to believe that it will work. I cross my arms and bring them above my head, before bringing them back down and apart. The energy goes all over my body and I gasp at the strange feeling.
"Did you do it?"
"I did it!"
"Awesome! Now, hurry, we're almost there!"