Chapter Song Rec: Way Out by Jack Harlow and Big Sean
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Your POV
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"Morning, rat."
"You're hilarious, Ravi"
As you sat yourself down at the lunch tables with Maria and Ravi, you found yourself thinking back to last night. That flash you'd grabbed...you'd have to look through it tonight. You were planning on staying up the whole night to watch all the videos, but it looked like your plans might get interrupted.
"Come on, y/n, we haven't hung out in forever!!" Maria exclaimed, shaking your shoulders when you didn't respond. Ravi was stifling his laughter behind his hand at your dazed expression. "Don't bother, Maria, she's too much of a nerd to want to spend her study time at the mall anyways."
"Yeah look who's talking, captain of the robotics team." You retorted, rolling your eyes. "But seriously, I've got a lot of work to do tonight." You gave Maria an apologetic look which she ignored. "Please??"
Ravi looked at you, his expression turning from sarcastic to more of a pleading, do it for me? kind of look. Of course, he wanted me to come along so he could hang out with Maria. No way I was gonna be a third wheel.
"Maria-" she shook your shoulders again, causing you to nearly drop your juicebox. "Please!! There's so many deals too, we'll have so much fun!"
"Wait, we're gonna buy stuff? I'm too broke for that shi-" Ravi started to say, looking as though he might back down himself. "No, no, no we can window shop!" She said quickly, grabbing his hand, her eyes still fixated on you. Despite his darker skin, you could tell he was blushing like crazy. You shot him a knowing smirk and he mouthed for you to shut up.
Suddenly, Maria let go of your shoulder and scooched back a little, a wide eyed expression on her face. You looked at her confusedly until you felt a tap on your back. You turned around to see none other than Miles Morales standing there, hands shoved in the pockets of his purple hoodie. "Hey."
You blinked. "Hi."
He looked at you for a moment before shaking his head slightly and asking, "Do you have the answers for the Spanish homework?"
"Yeah, but we're not in the same class." You said, raising a brow at him. "I'm in Spanish 3, you're in Spanish 4."
"Oh yeah. Right." He put his hand on the back of his head and looked to the side awkwardly. You nodded your head in response, not really sure what else we wanted to say. Maria and Ravi were watching your conversation intently, Maria looking up at Miles with an excited grin and Ravi looking at her annoyedly.
"You need something?" You asked, breaking the silence. His eyes widened slightly as he looked at you, swallowing back a lump in his throat. "No, no, I just...thought you'd have the answers."
"I don't."
"Oh."
"So, Miles, do you play any sports?" Maria asked, looking up at him with a friendly smile. Oh thank god, she was way better at talking to people than you were. You let out a sigh of relief as, to Ravi's dismay, she pulled him into a conversation. "Yeah, I play basketball."
"Are you gonna try out for the team?"
"Ion know. Prolly."
"Why'd you transfer here?" Ravi butt in, leaning over the table with a curious, and slightly annoyed, look on his face. Miles looked at Ravi, his bored expression faltering slightly as he tried to make up what you believed to be an excuse. "Visions isn't allat." He muttered with a shrug.
"Best school in Brooklyn isn't all that? That's crazy." Ravi shook his head with a laugh. Miles furrowed his brows and looked back at you, expression softening slightly. You stared at each other for a moment before you asked, "You wanna sit down?"
He nodded, ignoring Maria patting the seat next to her, and sat down next to you, putting his elbows on the table as he looked down. "Did you eat anything?" You asked, noticing the absence of a lunch box. "Nah" he shook his head, avoiding eye contact with you. "I wasn't hungry." That was definitely a lie.
"My mom made extra rotis. Y'all want some?" Ravi interjected, giving Miles an attempt at a friendly smile. At least he was trying.
"Where were you sitting before?" You asked as you watched Miles take the roti from Ravi's outstretched hand and bite into it. He offhandedly motioned toward a table in the back, without anyone there. "Oh." He must've come over because he didn't have anyone to sit with.
"Roxanne wouldn't leave me alone. And I knew she wouldn't bother me here." You looked back at the table, realizing there was another next to it where Roxanne and a couple of her friends were sitting, along with a small group of boys. That makes more sense. He seems like the type to want to be alone anyways.
"You're always welcome here" Maria shot him a bright smile which he returned just slightly.
"I'll keep that in mind."
Later that day, after practice, you returned home around 5 p.m., tired out of your mind and ready to collapse onto your bed and take a nap. But, you had work to do.
You came out of the shower wearing your pajamas and ran your hand over the desk as you searched for the drive you'd left there last night. Your finger felt the cold, hard edge of the 'goober', as the Prowler had called it, and you quickly grabbed it, pulling out your laptop and inserting it into the side. Immediately, all the files popped up, the last thing on the page being the weird-looking 'Underground' tech you'd been inspecting that night.
You stared at it for a moment. I'll deal with that later. You clicked out of the file and scrolled up to the top, the first thing being a video titled, Day 1. You'd already seen Day 1, so you clicked on Day 2. As you watched, that's when you realized that there were thousands of days of videos saved, and there was no way you'd be able to get through them all, especially not in one night.
"Welcome to Day 2 of the V.E.N.O.M. project." Your brother's smile appeared on the screen before he began to walk back, grabbing the vial next to him. "Today, we're going to be testing the symbiote's reaction to solution #1" he held up a vial of some sort of clear liquid.
You watched through the first 15 days of videos, each about five to ten minutes long, and you were starting to get really bored. They were testing the thing's reactions to different materials, but it just wouldn't move. In fact, it didn't do anything. It didn't even seem dangerous.
You were just about to get up to take a small break, when you heard a noise.
Tap tap tap
You snapped your head towards your locked window. Hanging on by the window ledge and peering inside was none other than the Prowler, the eyes of his mask narrowed slightly as he tried to grab your attention.
You blinked, confused for a moment before you slowly approached the window, barely processing what was happening. You pulled open the window and he pulled himself in with a grunt, his hand on your shoulder as he steadied himself. "Hey." He looked at you.
"What are you doing here?" You asked, furrowing your brows at him and folding your arms over your chest. "You can't be here! My parents are downstairs!" Your voice quieted to a whisper-shout. His eyes widened slightly as he struggled to defend himself. "I-I just wanted to see the files."
"No."
"What? What do you mean, no!?"
"I mean no." You walked back over to your computer, closing it before he could catch a glimpse. "This is none of your business."
"I helped you get it!"
You scoffed. "You nearly prevented me from getting it."
He groaned, approaching you angrily, like he was about to say something, but he stopped himself and sighed quietly, looking down. "Either you make me a part of this, or I'll take the drive. I don't need your permission." He said, tone cold, colder than you'd heard before.
"It's my drive."
"It's Osborne's."
"It's my brother's."
The Prowler hesitated for a moment, looking between you and the computer. "What do you mean it's your brother's?"
You looked down, a frown appearing on your face. You squeezed your eyes shut before opening them and looking back towards him. "That project. My brother worked on it, and-and-" your voice broke slightly. "He died because of it."
You took a step toward him, growing a little more frustrated. "I need to figure out what happened. I need-" your voice broke again and you stopped yourself. You groaned under your breath, slamming your fist down onto your desk, the Prowler still staring at you, his arms limp at his sides. "I need to do this. And I won't let you mess with it."
The way he was looking at you seemed almost sympathetic, the eyes of his mask slightly wide. "I'm...sorry for your loss." He said, his voice softer than you'd ever heard. "I...I lost someone too. Because of Oscorp. Because of Osborne." He took a step towards you. "This means something to me too. Let me help you. Please." He pleaded.
You stared at him, feeling your heart break a little at the way he sounded. He sounded like a little boy, like a kid who'd lost...everything. You could relate.
"I cant let anyone else be a part of this" I whispered, shaking my head and looking away.
"But what is 'this'?"
"I don't know, okay!" You said, a little louder than you'd like. He leaned back slightly and your eyes widened as you realized that you'd basically just yelled at him. "I don't know what I'm doing." You said softly, collapsing into your chair. "I'm just-I-" you groaned quietly, covering your face with your hands, elbows resting on top of your thighs. You couldn't do this right now.
Suddenly, you felt his presence approaching right in front of you. You opened your eyes slightly as he kneeled down in front of you, taking your hands as gently as he could in his claws. "Hey."
"Hi." You whispered back softly.
"Let me help you. Don't do this alone. Doing this sort of thing alone...is harder than it seems."
You looked at him, staring deep into the white of his mask, trying to imagine what his expression might've looked like behind there. A hesitant moment later, you turned back towards your computer and opened the next video. While it played, you explained to the Prowler what you'd already discovered.
He leaned down next to you, looking at the screen intently. "This guy was your brother?"
You nodded.
"And that thing-" he pointed toward the vial your brother was holding. "What is it?"
"A symbiote. It attaches itself to a host, or at least that's what they think it does. But...from what I've seen, it hasn't reached to anything yet." You sighed annoyedly. "But I still have 3000 more videos to go."
His eyes widened. "Yeah, no. We'll figure something out." He clicked the computer screen to move on to the next video, but his hand slipped and the file containing the 'Underground' gear blueprints slipped open instead. "What the-" he muttered, eyes narrowing as he scanned over it.
"Hey!" You smacked his hand away, pulling the computer towards you. He put his hands up defensively, tilting his head to the side slightly. "Sorry." You sighed, looking at him. "I just don't like people going through my stuff." You turned the computer back towards him.
He looked at you for a moment before clicking through the blueprints. "What is this stuff?"
"I'm not sure. Something I found on my brothers computer." I glanced back towards him. "Why? You think it's important?"
The Prowler looked extremely interested. "This stuff, it's genius!" He whispered under his breath, looking back at you. "Your brother was amazing."
A small smile appeared on your face at those words. "He was." You said softly. But he wasn't listening. The Prowler was excitedly scrolling through the blueprints, until he stopped at one and shoved the computer in your face. "I have these parts."
You stared at the screen. The blueprints contained what looked like a sword, made out of materials that you'd never heard of, with a long hilt and a thick blade. You looked to the top, where the name was written. Programmable Matter Sword
"It's genius but fairly simple. I can build it!" He said excitedly, searching for your expression. "It might take some time, and I'll have to find the materials, and it might get expensi-"
"We." You interrupted.
"Hmm?"
"We'll build it. Together." You smiled at him.
Despite not being able to see his face, you could tell he was grinning right back at you. You extended your fist towards him. "Partners?"
He chucked softly, reaching his clawed fist towards you as well, gently tapping his against yours.
"Partners."