It's been a couple of weeks since Peter and I had the discussion when I arrived back at school. And I can still see the look of defeat on his face as I told him that I don't feel the same way nor do I remember feeling that way at all. It hurt me that I had to tell him this because from what MJ had been telling me, we really cared about each other. But I wanted to at least have a friendship with Peter, but he has started to avoid me altogether. Every time that he sees me in the corridor, he makes a quick U-Turn and walks away. And I understand why he is doing it, it doesn't make it hurt any less knowing the sadness that I am bringing him when he sees me.
I know that I'm not what he wants to be around right now, but that doesn't mean that we can't talk at least or even walk past each other in the corridor. I'm still the same person as I was before, just without my memories but he's treating me like a stranger at this point. But the same part of me feels like I'm being selfish with wanting to rebuild a friendship with him when he wants more. Maybe it's for the best that we keep our distance from each other. I don't want to give him hope that my memory will come back one day and we'll go back to how it was before. When in fact it might never come back.
But I have been putting in the work to maybe work out who I was before all of this, having conversation with students and teachers who knew me. But nothing is helping me jog my memory. But luckily I had the help of MJ, who was and is my best friend. I can understand why in the past I was friends with her because she has been by my side this whole time with readjusting to the school life-style again. She also has been helping me with finding how to earn my extra credits to pass the year, after being told that I don't have enough from the principal.
She went with me to see a lot of the clubs that the school has to offer, but none of them are anything that I wanted to do. MJ keeps telling me about this decathlon team that she's on, and that I should join it but I don't know, Peter is on that team and I'm trying to give him the space that he wanted. And I'm sure he wouldn't be okay with me joining, so I'll just have to find another club, hopefully soon.
I also made some new friends, well new/old friends because apparently I knew them before but was never really that close with them. I became friends with Liz Allen after an accident that involved Flash, that may or may not have been caused by me but that's not the point right now. I was just standing at my locker, when Flash came loudly down the corridor and started picking on Peter calling him 'Penis Parker'. And I didn't know if Peter liking guys was public knowledge, and didn't want Flash to think that he could be homophobic and get away with it
So I waited till Flash was walking past me to give him a little payback, just to see how he would like to have everyone laugh and make fun of him for once. So I may or may not have thrown my heaviest book from my locker at him and watched as he went face first to the ground with a loud thud. But I quickly realise what I had done, I had instantly regretted it and hid behind the lockers as my body was filled with panic and fear of him retaliating against me and doing something even worse.
But with the overload of different feelings, there was also a bit of adrenaline that I felt about what I had done and couldn't help but smile a bit. I heard someone else laughing and looked over to see Liz making her way over to me with a huge smirk on her face, "That was amazing, I've wanted someone to do that for a long time" she tells me as she leans against the end of the lockers. "He had it coming" I sang the line from 'Cell Block Tango', a movie that Betty had made me watch recently as we both burst into laughter.
We bring our attention back onto Flash, who was now shouting "WHO DID THAT!" as he looked around from the ground. Then he spotted us laughing, "think this is funny huh?" he says with an annoyed face as he gets up but falls again. Which causes us to laugh even harder and he attempts to get up for the second time. "It wasn't us, but they went running that way," Liz tells him, pointing down the corridor, "Yeah, you want to start running to catch up to them" I say, playing along with Liz as we try to look serious so he believes us. And we watch as he starts to run down the corridor after the 'so called person'.
And on that day, an unexpected but welcome no-the-less friendship was born
"Thanks for that" I say to Liz as I walk over to where my book was laying on the ground, "all he had to do was open the book, and my name was there" I tell her opening it to show her. She is still laughing but when she notices that everyone is staring at her, she quickly pulls herself together. "No biggie, that was the highlight of my day" she tells me as we begin to walk down the corridor, and she told me about some gossip that she had learned today. She also introduced me to Betty, who I learned that we share the same favourite TV show and even movies, so I enjoyed our conversations about that.
I started to feel less lonely with them, and they even helped me with getting some credits. They told me about how they were on the planning committee, and how I should join them and help plan the Homecoming for credits. She also suggested that I also join the decathlon team because they were always looking for members, but I just declined again saying it wasn't something that I would be good at but she didn't believe me. I mean I wasn't dumb but I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.
"We could use someone like you, just think about it" Liz asks me again about joining the team as we sit in the Sport Hall for Gym Class. She continued to talk about something else but I zoned out when I noticed that Peer and Ned were only a couple of feet away from me. Not to sound creepy or anything but this was the closest that I've been to Peter since he started to ignore me. MJ told me that I used to be smitten over Peter, but when I look at him... I feel nothing. I felt a bit guilty but I shouldn't. It's not like I could force myself to have feelings for him again. And it would be cruel to pretend that I have the feels when I don't just to please him.
"Now, see, for me, it would be Fuck Thor, Marry Iron Man and Kill Hulk" I hear Betty say when I bring my attention back to the group. I was sitting with Liz and her friends because we were meant to be planning the homecoming, like the theme and all that stuff. But apparently playing 'FUCK, MARRY, KILL' was more important but hey as long as I get my credits, i dont't care what we do. I'm just glad that I wasn't a well know Super-Hero because I didn't want to know if they would fuck or kill me or I just wished that MJ was with me so that I didn't have to listen to one of Liz's friends wanting to fuck tony.
But she disappeared at the start of the period to go read a book somewhere quiet because she isn't a big fan of being around big groups of people... actually people in general except for me. "What about you, Y/N" I heard Betty say as she turns to me, but I didn't hear what she said. "Huh?" I say letting her know I didn't hear what she said, "what about me" I add and she gives me a look of disappointment for not listening.
"I asked you, Fuck, Marry, Kill" she begins to say, "Captain America, Iron Man and.... Spider-Man" she says with a big grin on her face. I didn't even know how to answer this, and the thought of the question made me sick to my stomach... I didn't want to fuck any of them. Steve is like a big brother to me, Tony is... well Tony and it would be weird to think about either of them in a sexual way. "Eh, I don't really think Captain America or Iron Man are attractive," I tell them and they let out a gasp.
"What about The Spider-Man" One of Liz's friends asked me, I didn't even mention him in case Peter could hear all this. It was kinda funny to me that they were loudly talking about fucking or marrying Spider-Man with unknowing to them, he was only a couple of feet Infront of them. "It's just Spider-Man" Liz corrects them, after being silent for a bit and I noticed that her cheeks were blushing and I knew she had a little crush on Spider-Man.
"Did you all see the bank security cams on Youtube? He fought off four guys" Liz mentions with a huge grin on her face still blushing as she speaks. When I first saw the video, a small part of me wanted to ignore the fact that Peter wanted space, and ask him if he was okay because he got a bit of a beating but I wanted to respect him, so I didn't. He seemed fine in school the next day, so I guess I was just overthinking it plus he was a superhero so could handle it maybe.
"OOOOH, she's crushing on Spider-Man" Betty loudly squealed while she noticed that Liz was blushing, loud enough that it got Peter's attention and he was now looking over in this direction. I could see something in Peter's face, did he feel the same way about her and judging by the look he was giving her, he did. Maybe I could help him so that he could move on so that maybe we could be friends, but I had to do it without revealing he was Spider-Man in the process. Just had to make what Liz was feeling for Spider-Man transfer on to Peter, shouldn't be to hard right?
"oh , she does" I say trying to see if I could get more information about it, "kind of" she says with her face turning into a deep maroon now. "Gross, he could be like 33" Betty says and I laugh at the face Peter makes when he hears this and whispers something to Ned. "You don't even know what he looks like" a friend tells her, "do you all just care about looks" I asked but got ignored with all the attention being on Liz's apparently weird crush. "Also fuck Thor, and isn't like over a thousand year old" I add on but again was ignored.
"I wouldn't care" she begins to tell them, "I'd love him for the person he is on the inside" she says, even though it sounded corny it was cute. "Peter knows Spider-Man" I hear someone shout and look over at Ned who was standing beside a shocked Peter. The whole friend group went quiet as all their attention was now on Peter and Ned, and by the looks of it Peter didn't want this attention at all. Did Ned know that Peter was Spider-Man, i mean they were close friends but I didn't tell MJ about my powers. So maybe Ned didn't know that Peter was Spider-Man, and honestly thought he did know him.
Either way Peter needed to come up with something because everyone was waiting for him to say something. "No, I don't... I mean" I watched as Peter began to stutter trying to come up with something to say and I felt sad watching him like this. "They're friends" Ned blurs out again... he really wasn't helping at all and I knew by Peter's face that he wanted to hit Ned at this moment. I could see that Peter was mentally hitting himself in the face over Ned, and still hadn't said anything.
And if things weren't bad for Peter, Flash now decided to get involved and put his nose into Peter's business. "Yeah, like how Coach Wilson and Captain America are friends" he says in a sarcastic tone as he makes her way over. "And who are you friends with again.. Oh yeah, no one" I say to Flash and he gives me an annoyed look before focusing on Peter again. "I've met him, yeah... a couple of times, but, it's through the stark internship" he says to us instead of Flash.
"Yeah, well, I'm not really supposed to talk about it" he says to Ned in an annoyed tone, "well, that's awesome" Flash says turning around to us with a fake shocked look. And by the look on his face when his 'shockness' disappeared, I knew that he was up to something with the smirk on his face. "Oh hey, you know what... maybe you should invite him to Liz's party.. Right?" He says turning to Liz.
I had honestly forgotten about the party Liz was having, she had invited me to it last week during the meeting for Homecoming. But I'm not really a party person, I went to one the week I started back but hated it. Plus I had plans with MJ, we were going to have a movie night and watch some scary movies. "Yeah, I'm having people over tonight, you're more than welcome to come" she tells Peter. And I knew this wasn't a good idea, but didn't know what Peter was going to do.
"Having a party" Peter says nervously but I could also hear that he was hurt by the fact he wasn't invited till now. "Yeah, it's going to be dope, you should totally invite your personal friend Spider-Man" Flash says with a big smirk and I really hoped Peter had some excuse for why Spider-Man couldn't go. I looked over to Liz to see what she was thinking but I could see that she wasn't getting her hopes up.
"It's okay, I know Peter's way too busy for parties anyway so.." Liz begins to say but Flash cuts her off. "Come on, he'll be there.. Right?" he turns back around to Peter, "Flash, drop it" I say with an annoyed face. I could tell that this was all getting too much for Peter but luckily the bell went so everyone's attention was off Peter as everyone was making their way out of the Gym to
I heard my name being called and looked over to see MJ rushing over with a book in her hand. "Change of plans" she tells me while linking my arms as we make our way over to the gym and I look over to see Peter and Ned having an argument. "What you mean" I bring my attention back to MJ confused on why MJ wanted to change plans last minute.
"I mean, we are going to that party" she tells me stopping in her tracks to face me, "what, why" I moan out of annoyment. "We agreed to pass on it, and stay in and watch movies, why do you want to go now?" I asked her but she turned to continue walking. "Because I want to see if Spider-Man shows up" she tells me, "and why do you care" I asked, "I don't, i just want to see" is all she says. "Plus you should be excited too," she tells me.
"Oh why is that" I asked, "Because.. Peter is going and maybe you two can get back together after a drunk moment" she says while walking into the girl's changing room. "That's not going to happen... I'm not going" I shout to her, and get a few weird looks from other students walking pass.
I was now sitting in the living room with Betty watching some British show called 'Antiques Roadshow'. We did this every Friday because Betty wanted to spend some quality time with me but didn't want to leave the house. "So what time are you heading to Michelle's at? '' Betty asks me while we watch the tv. "Actually I'm not going to MJ's anymore" I tell her and she pauses the Tv and is now facing me.
"And why is that" she asked, "you were so excited for this movie night" she continued. "Well there is a party tonight, and she wants to go instead" I tell her, "I'm guessing you don't want to" she asks and I nod my head. She takes a deep breath, "You're going to that party" she says before playing the tv again.
"What?" I say, and she pauses the Tv again before turning to me. "You're young, Y/N, you can't spend all your time inside... just go and be a normal teenager for once" she says to me with a look of sadness. ''I am a normal teenager '' I say back to her and she gives me a look, "You think a normal teenager would be spending their Friday night watching this" she says pointing to the TV.
She had a point, I didn't say anything but took out my phone and texted MJ to collect me for the party. I really didn't want to move because I was too cosy on the couch but I guess I had a party to get ready for. "Also if you're gonna drink, text me so Arthur can collect you" Betty calls out to me, you would think she would be telling me not to drink but nope.
As I walked into my room for the first time since I had gotten home from school, there was a box with a note sitting on top of my bed. Did Betty and Arthur get me something again, they were always doing it. whenever they went out, if they saw something I'd like, they would buy it and wrap it up for me. Betty liked to call them my "End of the Week Surprises", but they never had a note on them.
I walk over to my bed and just stare at the note that had my name on it, i didn't recognize the writing so it wasn't Betty or Arthur. I gingerly take the note off the top of the box and turn it around to see that there was writing on it... it was from Tony
To My Future Hero - Tony
I was honestly confused when I laid eyes on the note. Slowly, I opened the box, my curiosity getting the better of me. And there, right before me, was a USB labeled 'Play Me First'. Despite my anger, I couldn't resist the temptation to plug it into my laptop and uncover its contents. As the video began to play, my anger slowly dissipated, replaced by awe. I watched in disbelief as Tony and Wanda worked in tandem, pouring their expertise into crafting the ultimate superhero suit tailored specifically for me. The level of intricate details they had incorporated into every inch of the suit left me astounded. It seemed to perfectly align with my unique abilities, as if it had been custom-made for me
I watched as Tony talked about how excited he was to have me living here, but he was wonder about if he would fuck it up. In his exact words 'I don't know how to be a father' when I heard them words I felt guilt. I felt guilty about fighting with Tony. I couldn't believe that I had been so angry over something that wasn't even true.
This whole time I thought that Tony didn't like me and thought I was a monster when in fact it was the opposite. That why I didn't see much of Tony before everything happened, he was making this for me. Now I felt even more guilt about what I had said to Tony about him not even caring about me.
The video ended with Tony saying that Wanda enchanted the suit to appear when I said a certain word 'Spectrus', Tony said something about snapping my fingers. And I was left with all my thoughts and believe me, there was a lot of them. I walked over to the box and saw that suit was in the box as well. "Spectrus" I repeat the words that Wanda had told me to say and with a blink of an eye, the suit was now on. I walked over the bathroom and looking at myself in the mirror, "WOW" was the only word that I was able to get out when staring at the suit.
It was like Wanda's outfit, but a dark version and I loved it. There was one problem though, there wasn't a mask or anything to cover my face incase I wanted to keep his identity a secret. I then remember that Tony said some thing about snapping my fingers, so that why I did. and i watched as fabric started to move and it formed a hood, I looked to the mirror to see that the hood had made a dark shadow that was now covering the top haft of my face.
I heard my phone buzz from my room, I walked over to my bed that I left my phone on. To see that it was a message from MJ saying that she was on the way. "SHIT" I say to myself, I completely forgot about the party and had to get ready. "Spectrus" i say and quickly ran over to the closet to get ready. I was just about ready when MJ's mother pulled up in front of the house with MJ. I heard the doorbell, and made my way to the front door to see Betty had already got it and was now talking to MJ. "Ready for your big night, sweetie?" she asked, giving a warm smile.
"As much as I can be when I'm being forced" I cheerfully say as a joke but it really wasn't. Just as I was about to leave the door, Betty grabs my hand, "well, before you go, i just want to share a little story with you both" she says to me and MJ. "When I was your age, parties were a little different. We didn't have fancy clubs with DJs and bottle service. We'd meet up in someone's backyard and dance to a record player." she began to say as I looked over at MJ giving her a look of apology for this but she looked interested in the story.
"But you know what?" she continued. "It was some of the best times of my life. I made lifelong friends at those backyard parties, and we had so much fun just being silly and dancing the night away" she tells us. "But what I'm trying to say is to just go have fun, and just forget about all the stress and worry of life and just live in the moment" she finishes and it was actually sweet.
"Thanks for sharing that with me," I said sincerely because I was lucky to have someone like Betty to be looking after me. "Of course, sweetie," she replied, smiling back at him. "Now go have fun, and make some memories of your own." she tells me before MJ and I head to what might be the most eventful night... well for me at least but that getting ahead of myself.