ADITI
"Come on you two." Natasha hissed at us as she continued down the dark and damp underground alleyway, her handgun out, hands steady.
"We're coming." I shot back. "Peter just needs a little more time than usual, okay." He was lacking the energy that normally made him the bounciest and most enthusiastic of us all.
"I'm okay." He muttered, as I pulled his arm tighter around my shoulder.
"I know you are." I looked at Nat who was gesturing for us to hurry up. "We do need to speed up though Peter, okay."
Together we caught up to Natasha who looked me up and down.
"You're going to need stitches in cut next to your chin." She noted before carrying on down another alley.
"Didn't even know I had one." I looked at Peter. "Is it bad?"
He shook his head. "You look like a videogame character. It's very cool."
"Which one?"
"You look like Inigo Montoya."
"Peter he's not from a videogame, we literally watched Princess Bride last week " But still I smiled. He knew that Inigo was one of my favourite characters. But then my smile fell. "Is it that big?"
"Come on you two!" Natasha had stopped again as Peter paused to examine the cut.
"Coming!" I yelled back, my feet planted in place.
Peter reached out a hand and with a gentle finger touched my face. I tried not to flinch from the slight stinging that came from it. Very carefully he traced along the cut from nearly halfway down my cheek all the way to just next to my chin. His touch was featherlight, and he made sure not to go too near the open wound so as not to hurt me.
"It's not too bad Ti." He whispered. "It just looks painful."
I shook my head. "It isn't. I didn't even realise I'd got it."
He took my hands from my sides, holding them in his. I could feel his web shooters pressed against my palms. "You've been the bravest of all of us Ti." He looked into my eyes with those beautiful dark brown orbs, like coffee in the morning, like old library books that smell of knowledge, like leaves in the fall. Just two brown eyes looking into one another's souls.
"You were awake, weren't you." I breathed. "You were awake the whole time."
He nodded, not breaking eye contact. "You couldn't feel me?"
"I was so busy feeling my own emotions I never even thought... God I'm so sorry Peter. I should have checked. I've never had to use them like that before."
"It's okay, as long as you don't say you're sorry again." He smiled. "Cause you don't have anything to apologize for. I was so relieved when I heard your voice, I knew then I'd be safe."
I felt my face heat up, but I could tell he was sincere. As soon as he saw me getting embarrassed, he started to get embarrassed as well, and dropped my hands. I brushed my hair out of my eyes. I was taller than him, I realised now. I'd never noticed that before.
"Hey, where's Nat?" He asked, glancing around. "NAT!"
"Give me one sec." I closed my eyes and fell, or at least my body fell. My consciousness rose upwards as Peter grabbed my body before it could hit the ground.
"Aditi." He hissed, tapping my face. Then he sighed. "If you can hear me, I hate you. What am I supposed to do if we get attacked and you're not in your body?"
"Deal with it." I muttered, beginning to float along the underground street.
"You'd probably tell me to deal with it." I heard Peter murmur from behind me, and I let myself smile a little although I knew it wouldn't show up on my physical face.
I rose upwards and glided down the corridor, taking a left. There were a set of stone steps at the end of the walkway. I went up to them and looked up. A trap door. I pushed through it and found myself... on the streets of Hong Kong. Only reason I knew it was Hong Kong was the tourist shop opposite me selling T-shirts that said 'I ❤️ Hong Kong'.
There was a way out. And it was only one corridor away. Nat must be out here somewhere, the only question was why had she come out without us and not come back for us? I forced myself out of the third perspective, waking up and with a jerk, and slammed my forehead into Peter's.
"Ow." I rubbed my face. "Peter why was your head so close to mine, you know I can wake up at any minute."
"I uh." He swallowed, also rubbing his head. "Yeah sorry, stupid."
"There's a way out." I pointed in the direction of the exit as I got to my feet. "It's literally one left and then some stairs and then we're in the open."
We ran down the corridor and turned left, where I knew the steps to be. Only...
"I thought you said there'd be steps here?" Peter asked, as we both stared at the lack of a staircase at the end of the alley.
"There were. With a trap door." I went up to the brick wall at the end of the alley and pressed my hand to it, feeling the condensation stick to my palm. "It should be here."
"Do you think it's like Hogwarts?" Peter asked from behind me.
My hand was gross from touching the wall so I wiped it off on my trousers. "What?"
"Like the staircases in Hogwarts. They move. Maybe the alleys are moving?"
I was about to say this was stupid when it occured to me that this was not at all stupid. It was like a maze on top of a maze.
I frowned. "Actually, Peter, you might be onto something. Web me."
"Huh?"
"Web me. Put a web between our wrists, that way we won't lose each other." I shuddered at the thought of being separated in the dark.
"Yeah, okay, that sounds like a good idea." He shot a web at the inside of my wrist and wrapped it around his own. "Come on." He led the way down the corridor, and took the only turning possible, which was to the right. From there we walked in what felt like a zigzag, going left and right and then left again.
"It's getting darker." I murmured, as some of the condensation dripped onto my forehead.
"Alina would be useful right now." He sighed. "Or Roara with the fire."
"Can't spiders see in the dark?"
"I mean, yeah better than people, but I'm not an actual spider am I. Anyway I was thinking of you, because you don't like the dark."
He was right. I did not like the dark.
"It feels like we've been going for ages." I whispered.
"I know." He agreed. "I can't keep track of time in here."
I shook my head. "Me neither."
He wasn't even in his Spidey suit, just the t-shirt and shorts that they'd found for him after I'd made a fuss about them keeping him in his frazzled and burnt suit. I was kind of jealous. I was still in my suit and it was hot in Hong Kong, but worse than hot it was humid.
"One sec." I ripped of my long sleeved suit jacket and wrapped it around my waist. I was wearing a tank top underneath so it was okay. I'd have to make do with the heat of the combat trousers. The only issue was the web that was attached to the suit and not me. Peter didn't so much as glance at it before he shot another web and let the first go from his wrist. He came over to me and must have used a chemical to dissolve the web that had been attached to my suit.
"All good now?" He asked. He was standing close to me, I noticed, although I knew it had just been to help me with the webbing.
I nodded. "Much better."
We walked side by side down the corridor, but I was getting a sense of increasing unease from Peter as we walked. I decided to ignore it because of course he'd be uneasy in this situation. We were getting more and more lost and everywhere we looked was just getting darker and darker.
"I don't like this." I shuddered. "I definitely saw a way out somewhere. How would the maze know when to stop us getting close, it's not as though it's sentient."
"You never know, it could be. We could be in the world's first sentient maze. OH GREAT MAZE PLEASE LET US OUT!" He shouted. I giggled and shoved him lightly.
"You're just being silly now."
"I'm never silly." He grinned.
And then I felt it again. That swelling of unease. You couldn't see it on his face, as though he'd become practiced at hiding it, but I could feel what people didn't want me to.
"Peter..." I looked him up and down slowly. "What is it you're not telling me?"
It felt as though he as a cat with his hackles up, and for a moment I thought I understood how Fiona must have communicated with animals. To her, it was a spoken language, but really it is was everything other than words. It was the inflection in their tones, the slight ruffle of feathers, the tilt of the head. It was a language she was so in tune with she never had to second guess herself. To her it was so natural that it felt like, well, words. This was how natural understanding people's feelings was to me. It was intuitive.
Out of everyone I'd ever met, I was most in tune with Peter. He'd overtaken my parents somehow. We'd spent almost every waking hour together, studying, training, chilling. A lot of it was in silence too. I think even without my abilities, I'd have formed a rhythm with him, an understanding deeper than with anyone else. We were the youngest, by at least four years. Four years didn't sound much but it felt like a massive difference between me and Alina. So we'd ended up sticking together, but more than that, we'd worked at knowing one another because we genuinely enjoyed each other's company. He enjoyed the peace that came with me, the lack of judgement, the silly comments. I enjoyed his humour, his energy, his nerdiness. He was able to make me laugh like nobody else, and he'd pulled me out of my shell more than any other friend I'd had.
I knew when something was wrong. I knew his fear as though it was mine, and in a way it was.
"Peter." I put a hand on his shoulder. "What is it?"
He swallowed and glanced around, then under his breath whispered, "We're being followed."
"How long?" I whispered back.
"Not entirely sure, at least 20 minutes? I knew exactly when they started, but as you said time feels strange here."
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked, my brows furrowing.
"They've been keeping a safe distance while they thought we didn't know we were being followed." He replied darkly, eyes flicking round again.
"How come you can't see them?" I murmured. Peter saw everything. His eyes noticed every movement, his ears heard every sound.
"I don't know." He replied.
And that worried him. He didn't need to finish the sentence for me to know.
"Want me to-"
"No. No third perspective. You're staying right here." He looked over his shoulder for a third time. "Let's just keep moving."
I nodded, and followed him down the street. The sounds of our feet splashing in the small puddles seemed to become louder as the light dimmed even further.
We probably would have stopped to rest at some point if we didn't think we'd be attacked at any second. Peter wasn't working at full capacity, and I'd exerted a lot of energy in the fight earlier, not to mention I'd been stuck in a glass cell for about four days.
"What film are we going to watch when we get back?" He asked, trying to keep the subject light.
"Not another horror movie." I shuddered. "How about sixteen candles?"
He sucked in a breath. "Ten things I hate about you."
"Deal."
"If you had to write down ten things you hated about me what would they be?"
None. I don't hate anything about you. "Probably the way you sometimes eat with your mouth open and that you put your headphones under your t-shirt for starters. Like why would you do that? It feels weird when they're like pressed against your skin, especially if it's hot because it gets all sticky and just eww." I made a face of disgust. It really was a weird concept to me.
"They stay in that way!" He protested. "It's useful."
"It's gross and it's weird. What would your ten things about me be?"
He hesitated. "Uh... Probably that you forget to put the lids on pens the whole time and then you have to borrow mine. Oh and you don't watch sports."
"You barely watch sports." I snorted. "Fine one of my list is that you're a die hard Mets fan even though they suck."
He got very quiet then. I felt the pain of grief coming from him.
"Peter I'm sorry I didn't mean-"
"No it's fine. Uncle Ben introduced me to baseball." He let out a small laugh. "He'd say whenever we lost, maybe next year, every single year." He glanced up at me. "He died about a year ago. A year and a little bit." He looked down and nodded. "That's why I like the Mets."
This was an area that I would never truly connect with him over. I still had my parents, alive and well and thriving. My uncle was still kicking, or at least I hoped, the last time I saw him was with Alina so he should be fine. Peter had lost almost every father figure he'd ever had and it was almost crushing some days.
"Peter..." For once I didn't know what to say. I knew grief, had felt the overwhelming waves of it through other people. Even with all my wisdom of living other people's lives with every sleep, and my understanding of emotions, I was lost for words. What could I say to my best friend that could help right now?
I let out a deep breath. "I'll become a Mets fan too then. Every game you go to, I'll be there."
His brows dipped. "But you hate crowds?"
I smiled, putting my hands on his shoulders. "For you, I think I could manage anything. It'd be an honour to go with you."
A rustling sound behind us made the both of us stand stock still. Slowly we turned in unison to face...
I felt the pit of my stomach fall away. I was left hollow, both Peter and my fear reverberating around my insides.
We were staring into two massive red eyes, glowing in the darkness like warning lanterns on the shores of beaches.
And we were the ship, about to crash into the rocks.