THE WARM EVENING AIR MAKES NINA SIGH OUT IN RELIEF. Inside, it just felt suffocating, and this may be the first time she's been able to breathe all night since Fury had forced the two of them to report into the headquarters. With a slight huff, the girl sits on the roof, dragging her tired body to just relax for a bit.
Being a superhero was a battle. A battle she had every day. Sure, being a superhero and an Avenger wasn't really her dream, but as time passed by, Nina could wholeheartedly say that she found immense joy in saving people that needed her help.
But overworking herself - physically and especially mentally - came with a price. The price was a heavy heart, a string of guilt always keeping her company, and the shitload of bruises she had scattered across her body.
Almost getting her head blown off was the newest item on her never-ending list.
"Hey, Peaches," the girl turns her head at the source of the voice, already feeling a little bit better at the sight of Peter Parker walking next to her, taking a seat to keep her company... as if he already knew what to do. "I'm not going to ask you if you're okay because you're obviously not, but my Aunt tells me that I'm a very good comforter."
Nina expected words, because the boy was always good with his words, but this time, Peter cups her face in his hands so that she can no longer avoid eye contact.
The girl closes her eyes when his forehead touches hers, breath trapped somewhere in her chest.
It's a little pathetic, how much comfort she's receiving from his touch alone, and how she wants this whole thing to stretch on for hours.
A light touch to her forehead and her cheek. He traces all the spots where her moles are like he's committing each one to memory, then sets to work rubbing the rest of the tension from Nina's neck and shoulders, easing the girl even further.
There's something about Peter that makes her feel normal for a bit. No Illiana, no Samara, no Elementals, no legacy to uphold, and most importantly, no-
He kisses her forehead, drawing those thoughts up short. It's for the better - if Nina thinks any longer about the state of things she is more likely to lose her shit.
Suddenly, the short, sweet moment is interrupted by the sight of Mysterio floating right in front of the two of them, the globe disappearing as he offers the two of them a smile. "I'm sorry, did I interrupt something?"
"You did," Nina deadpans, though, she couldn't help but smile softly due to Peter's actions. "But the moment is ruined so shoot whatever inspirational speech you have."
With that, the girl presses the pendant on her wrist, flying mid-air once the suit is ready. "Unfortunately for me, I'm a shit person, so I give shit advice, and I don't need any comfort whatsoever because I'm fine now, but I'm pretty sure Peter needs it because Nick Fury is a dick. Adios."
After the short rooftop encounter, Nina decides to turn her good mood even greater by flying to the , Zlaty kriz deli, a local old-school deli packed with locals, to get herself a chlebíčky, a baguette-like bread with different toppings - cucumber, egg, salami, and ham - that makes her even happier.
On her way back to the hotel, the girl passes by the several food stalls scattered around the sidewalk, minding her own merry way - until she finds herself halting into a complete stop.
Nina isn't too sure about what happened at that moment.
One second, she's completely fine, until her heart starts pounding desperately in her chest. There's a buzzing, high-pitched sound in her ears, her breath is speeding up, and she claps her hands over her ears but it doesn't help the noise in the slightest.
Something is wrong. Nina doesn't know why she knows it but something is terribly wrong and she just knows it, for some fucking reason she can't seem to explain.
Then, it stops.
It just completely halts, like nothing has happened, and before she can question the weird instance that had just occurred, Nina spots Peter standing in front of the hotel, eyes darting around nervously.
"Peter!" The girl calls out, ditching the weird encounter completely - it must have been just a weird, unexplainable panic attack - and runs towards the boy, pointing to the hotel. "What's going on? What are you doing here?"
The boy turns around, his anxious stance relaxing, shoulders unraveling from it's tense position when the girl eases by his side. "Thank god, I was looking for you."
"Missed me that much, Parker?" The girl quipped, not running away from the chance to tease Peter again.
"In fact, I did," Peter admits, "But right now, we both need to get inside to avoid suspicion 'cause EDITH found a way to keep everyone out of the Carnival of Lights tonight."
Nina cocks her head to the right, very much resembling a confused cat. "Huh?"
"I'm not entirely sure, but let's just listen to Mr. Harrington cause I'm pretty sure that he's the head teacher in charge so he'll explain everything," he sees the food on her hand, suddenly growing very distracted. His stomach grumbles, as if it was on cue. "Sandwich?"
"Obviously. Here you go," before he could say anything, Nina takes it and shoves it in his hand, letting the boy eat the last half of her meal since she clearly heard his stomach rumble.
Peter smiles softly as he chews on the bread, his cheeks turning into a soft shade of red when he realized that Nina, who always refused to share her food, gave him the last piece of her sandwich.
All Peter hopes that the whole Elemental's shit ends soon, because he cannot find the patience to sit around on his ass and wait for him to be hers anymore.
...
"Good news. We're going to the opera!"
Hearing the groans coming from her classmates, Nina shoots Peter a teasing smile; getting a little shrug from the boy in return.
"You're kidding me!"
"The opera?" Betty questions exhaustedly, looking very disappointed with all the neon accessories already around her neck and wrists. Her glaze flickers over towards her best friend, expecting that she might know something about this, and her thoughts are confirmed when Nina sends her a firm look with her eyes.
"Don't look at me." Mr. Dell mumbles, sounding as disappointed as everyone else.
"What happened to the carnival?" MJ questions, concern laced in her tone.
"Well, this is upgrade living, guys. Come on. The tour company just gave us these tickets. For free!" he urges, "Do you have any idea how much opera tickets cost?"
"Doesn't that seem a little suspicious, sir?" Matty, who has neon colored shades covering his eyes, questions. "We've been getting upgrades all day long."
"Who cares, let's go back to the topic!" Flash yells, "None of us have ever wanted to go to the opera, ever!"
Ned Leeds, the boy Betty is dating and the boy Nina still has very little information on about, chimes in, "For I think this is gonna be culturally enriching for us."
"He knows you're Spider-Man?" The girl whispers, making sure that no one hears them.
"He does."
"Thank you, Ned." Mr. Harrington nods at the boy, turning to everyone else, "Everyone, this is gonna be, maybe, the best four hours of our whole trip."
"Four hours?" All the students demand at the same time, all very upset at the new revelation.
"Guys, I think this is gonna be really fun." In another attempt to play peacemaker, Ned receives another chorus of groans from his classmates. "Seriously."
"I bet now you're all happy I had you pack a nice outfit." Mr. Harrington tries to lighten up the atmosphere by cracking a joke.
"Yeah, because we'd much rather go to a four-hour opera instead of the biggest party in the world," Flash mumbles sarcastically, one step away from throwing a full-on tantrum.
"Again, don't look at me." Mr. Dell, still sounding disappointed, grumbles.
Almost twenty minutes later, despite being a hundred percent positive that she wouldn't be joining the opera, Nina still dresses to impress - maybe it was out of spite, or maybe she just wanted to look pretty while she fought a fire elemental, but she looked beautiful.
The dress covers only a small portion of her shoulders and flows down into a beautiful scoop neckline. It's a loose fit which makes the dress look comfortable, yet elegant and stylish. Honestly, everything looks good on Nina, that's a given, but there's something so beautiful about her wearing that dress tonight.
"You look pretty," Betty breathes out, widest smile making it's way onto her face as she grabs Nina's hand, twirling her around a circle with the biggest possible grin. "I can't believe you're missing this."
"To be fair, it's a four-hour opera, I'm not really missing anything."
"Still!" Betty persists, giggling once Nina twirls for one last time, hand leaving hers. "You have no right looking that pretty when you're only staying there for what, ten minutes?"
"Zero," Nina corrects, "I'm just hanging around by the entrance for a bit then I'm leaving."
"Are you sure you're going to be okay?" Betty questions, looking very concerned - of course she was, Nina had to explain that she had to fight a fire monster in less than an hour.
"I'm fine," A lie, a complete lie - she doesn't even know if this whole thing is going well or not. But, she had to reassure Betty so her little blonde friend wouldn't have to worry too much. "I have lot's of backup."
The smaller girl looks like she's hesitating, eyes darting around the floor nervously. Nina could tell that there was something that Betty wanted to say, but she was clearly stopping herself from saying whatever those words were.
"What?" The liar questions, a raised brow prominent. "Come on, Betty. What's going inside that pretty little head of yours?"
"Fine," Betty breathes out, taking a seat down on Nina's bed. "This morning, at the bus, after the whole baby mountain goats incident, I think I may have realized something... something big."
Already having the slightest idea of what this was all about, Nina nods, trying to not show Betty that she was starting to grow nervous. "Uh-huh?"
"And Ned, my boyfriend, who you still don't approve," Betty rolls her eyes, continuing the story, "Is a bit chatty... and I don't think he realizes that I... sort of catch up on things."
Nina bites her lip nervously, "Okay...?"
"So, I started patching up all the pieces. Last year, when you and Peter had apparently disappeared at Washington at the same time and Spider-Man suddenly shows up, climbing the Washington Tower... the way you'd subtly glance at him every time a tribute for our fallen heroes would appear... you two disappearing together in this trip constantly..." Betty lists of her reasons one by one, each word coming out of her mouth making Nina realize just how careless she could sometimes be, "Peter Parker is Spider-Man, isn't he?"
Fuck. Fucking fuck fuck fuck fuck. Before she can either confirm or deny the question, a knocking sound echoes from her window, until it completely halts, replaced with the sight of Peter Parker, in his best formal wear, climbing inside her room like it was a normal thing.
He doesn't even see Betty at first. No, he's too focused on Nina - Nina, Nina, Nina, Nina, Nina - his whole chest bursting with sparks, heart skipping a beat.
"You look..." he breathes out, not even finding the right words to say. Beautiful would be an understatement. "You look... wow."
"Well, I guess I'm right."
That causes Peter to do a complete flip, eyes darting towards Betty Brant, who, he had no idea was even there. There's a proud smirk on Betty's face, arms crossed as she examines Peter carefully, precisely. "You're Spider-Man, aren't you?"
"No!" The boy tries to deny it, not knowing that the latter has a million evidence against him. "I just... I'm at the room above so I like climbing down to Nina to go check her out."
"I can always erase her mind if you want, Parker?" Nina is half teasing, half serious. That, however, entirely confirms Betty's suspicions.
"How did you figure it out?" Peter questions, sounding gravely defeated.
"I'm very observant, Peter. I catch up on things easily, Ned talks a lot. Wow. This makes so much sense," Betty laughs, "So you tried to kill him, and now you're into him? That's so cute!"
"Again, Peter, I can erase her memories right now," Nina offers, and despite Peter's upcoming impending doom, finds the situation a bit humorous. Everyone - everyone who knows his identity now all found it out; which meant that Peter was doing a really shit job with the whole secret identity thing.
Glancing nervously at Betty, Peter lets out a breathy chuckle. He contemplates the choices for a bit - and the answer should have been obvious, erase her memories, but his senses don't seem to pick up on any danger. "You wouldn't tell anyone, wouldn't you."
Betty nods. Nina rolls her eyes, "You have way too much trust in her."
"Hey!" The blonde girl defends herself, "I'm trustworthy!"
"Sure, whatever you say, Betty." Nina laughs, walking up to the boy - Peter feels his heart constrict into his chest when she wraps her arms against his, linking them together. Nina likes to pretend that if doesn't seem to affect her, but Peter could feel her heartbeat, and that small smile on her face was nothing compared to what he knew she felt inside. "Now, Peter and I gotta show ourselves to Mr. Dell and Mr. Harrington - then save the world."
...
The plan goes pretty smoothly - both Peter and Nina make a very short appearance by the opera, having made sure that the two adults caught a glimpse of them before they completely went off the grid, due to both Nick Fury and Maria's repeated and unnecessary contacting towards them.
Now on top of the roof of the National Theater in their new suits, Nina's cheeks tinted a warm red due to the cold air combined with the sensation of Peter's hand previously on her waist after having had swung the two of them to the top. Her new suit had no jets that could fly her around whatsoever, which was a huge inconvenience... but it wasn't like she minded it.
Nina presses against the side of the building, the black suit getting a bit too hard for her to navigate. "Hill. Fury. Peter and I are in position."
"Roger that,"
"How's the suits?"
"The suit's great." Peter responds, "It's awesome. It's a little tight around the old web-shooter."
"Peter," Nina hisses, the smile on her face contrasting her dark tone. "Mine is shit, Fury. I can't move in this thing and it's stressing the fuck out of me."
"I don't know if you're expecting that Stark Technology you're used to Valkin, but this suit was made on short notice."
"You think I don't know that?"
"Then enlighten me— what is it with all the complaining, Valkin?"
Letting Fury talk mindlessly while she refuses to listen, the girl glances down at the crowds in the streets below and the neon lights and fireworks in the sky and decides that she needed a small moment of peace of mind before she's thrown into battle; and listening to Nick Fury would do nothing to help that.
However, the mood suddenly shifts. Fury's booming voice is there again, but with a more abrupt message, "Energy Spike."
Maria notes, "We have seismic activity."
For a few seconds, it's silent. For some reason, Nina's vision is growing hazier and hazier as each minute passes by, but it must've just been a malfunction with the suit.
Her eyes are trailing on the north side of the festival. In her peripheral vision, everything seems to go okay, but she's snapped out of her daze at the sound of Peter's panicked voice screaming, "Okay, he's here! Beck, you ready? You know what to do."
"On your lead."
With the go signal, Nina throws one of her wall climbers attached onto her utility belt and falls down the building, finding this situation way harder than just having to fly away.
The first thing that she notices is the chaos. Now that the most important part of her job at the moment was damage control, Nina forces all of the people nearby to run away from the scene and get into safety, away from the fire monster that was trying to destroy everything in it's path.
Again, she doesn't pay too much attention on the much larger fire elemental that towers over the buildings - she's already handled most of it; having had asked KISS to set a bunch of special drones sending nothing but water towards the creatures way to weaken it.
She's focused on helping people. That's what she needs to do. So she does it quickly - with the utmost precision, almost emptying the area of people... until Nina pauses, suddenly feeling a peculiar thing in her stomach as she glanced around.
Everything wasn't as bright as it was.
Street lights, neon signs, those blaring white
marquees on movie theaters. Headlights in the other lanes; Prague always seemed to be set on bright even when they weren't and this was nothing compared to what she seen just minutes ago.
The fire monster is less bright, looking like a candle about to lose it's fire, and it's not because of drones she's sent to work on it. She can still feel the flaming heat; and it wasn't because of her suit either...
Nina isn't dumb. She's the furthest from it. It takes her a few seconds, but it clicks.
Her vision slowly faded to black suddenly and she couldn't see a thing. Her heart was past the "calm panic" point as she started looking around helplessly - nothing. Absolutely nothing.
"Nina!" If she could listen to it carefully, it almost sounds like a very confused and concerned Fury. "Nina, where the hell are you?"
'I-I can't see anything! It's all black!" Nina yells, "Fury, I need you to listen to me!"
"Nina, help!"
"Where are you?"
"Why are you standing there? Get out! You're gonna get burned!"
"Get in position!" Beck yells in her earpiece - and she takes them out of her channel, stopping it from tipping her into insanity. Everything was still way too much, but having the voices stop did help to some extent. Only Nick Fury was left; only Nick Fury could hear her.
"Fury, Samara and Illiana are here." The girl rushes out, her mind growing lighter and lighter and lighter and it was freaking her out. "I— I can't see anything! She's messing up with my senses and—"
Suddenly, a hand grabs her from her back, slamming her onto the ground in the process. Her head smacked roughly against the ground as she felt someone - someone she probably knew towering above her.
The first instinct to control this person's mind proves to be useless, since she cannot feel them; it was like they weren't even there. A projection, one might say; probably Samara toying with her brain.
Then, in a blink of an eye, her consciousness is taken away, and everything stops.
...
NOTES:
sorry for the late updates im on vacation mode atm and im constantly traveling 😭
things may seem confusing atm but everything adds up i promise !!