June and Peter decided to take a walk, even if the weather was extremely cold and the wind was blowing loudly.
The two hid their faces behind big scarves and covered their heads with their jacket's hoods before walking out of the house, after June had made sure her father knew about it.
They started to walk and both chuckled when June almost tripped on the frozen stairs.
"You okay?" Peter asked, his lips still turned into a smile. June nodded and placed a hand on his shoulder to take the last steps, then put the hand in the pocket of her jacket.
"Is it going to snow?" June turned her heads towards the sky and breathed out a cloud of breath.
"Probably," she replied. "The sky's clouded."
"Come on." Peter moved his head to the side and they started walking on the sidewalk, not even asking each other where they were planning on going. Not that it mattered at all, since they only needed each other's presence for the moment.
"I'm sorry for getting so mad at you, June," Peter muttered, turning towards June to notice she was shaking her head.
"Don't," she said, stopping on her tracks. "We've both been incredible idiots, and I'll kick you if you say sorry one more time."
"I was the one who overreacted-" Peter completely ignored her words, but stopped talking after he looked closely at June's expression. She was going to reply, and she wanted him to understand.
"We're not going anywhere if we keep acting like this."
June stopped as well, furrowing her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
Peter puffed out air, looking closely at his friends.
"I think the fight in Germany changed us more than we expected, and not in the positive way I thought it would. It made me ever more reckless, and I stopped caring about anything that wasn't my alter ego. What happened to you scarred you deeply, and you decided to shut down an important part of you for as long as you wanted. We're not acting like ourselves, and that's because we want to go back to how we were before that fight, but we can't."
June remained silent, thinking about what Peter had said. It made sense, somehow. Deep down, June would have loved to go back to missions, since they were the most exciting part of her day, even if she would openly say she hated it. She had realized it after spending entire weeks doing nothing but studying and lying in bed to look at nothing in particular. But she wanted to go back to how it was when they were just playing, having fun punching bad guys. When she didn't know what the risks of using her powers too much were, and when Peter didn't almost get killed.
"Did you really become more reckless?" she asked, trying not to make any feeling be evident from her expression. She wanted to understand his point of view clearly, before giving him any personal opinion.
Peter nodded, hiding his face more behind the scarf. "You were the one who would make my feet remain on the ground. I've always wanted to give my powers full potential, and without you I had started doing just that, and it got awful. I stopped planning missions, I would just show myself and hope no one would put up some trick to kick my ass. Then Tony arrived, and things got slightly better."
June stared at him, waiting for him to continue. She really didn't know how to feel about the situation.
"But I knew how you were feeling about the situation. I had understood your point of view, and when I tried to talk to you and you pushed me away, I understood it as well. I wasn't expecting anything from you, but then you used your powers to save those students and I just kind of freaked out. I didn't know what had happened, if you had actually got stuck in your world for I don't know how many years, and I just vented it out on you, but I should have done the complete opposite."
That was all she needed to know. She didn't care if things weren't completely okay between them, she only needed to know he wasn't mad at her anymore. June cut him off but wrapping her arms around his waist, and hid her face in his jacket, trying to stop tears from falling.
Peter replied to the hug almost instantly, sending June a sense of safety she had longed for too much.
"Are we okay now?" Peter asked in an almost scared tone. June smiled and raised her head to look at him.
"Of course," she whispered, lowering her head again to hug him.
"Thank God." Peter breathed out and hid his face in the crook of June's neck. Shivers ran down her spine, but she did her best not to show it.
The two then decided to walk to the park where Peter had found June just a few days before. It was the park they used to go the first weeks after Peter had found out about his powers. It was right in the back of an enormous abandoned building and no one ever wandered there, so they were away from suspicious looks.
That was why Peter had perfectly known where June had hidden, and he imagined the reason why she had went back to that place after so long.
"It seems absurd, but I miss those days." June slowly moved her hands forward and backward, the swings making a creaking sound as they moved.
"What's bothering you?" Peter asked, his eyebrows furrowed. He knew for sure June had changed after Germany, but there was more to it than what she would say. She was the type of person to always look brooding, but he had grown to understand the difference between when she was simply thinking and when there was something highly bothering her.
"It's Simon," she said without even thinking. There was no need of hiding it from him anymore.
"Simon?" Peter stiffened, stopping the swing as he moved towards June, his hands on his knees. "Did something happen?"
June looked down at her hands, playing with the few rings she had. "He has the same powers as I do."
Peter remained silent for a moment, and June raised her head to peek behind her hair, trying to understand what kind of reaction he was having. He didn't seem terrified, but not even surprised.
"Well, that's great, isn't it?" he exclaimed, not looking excited at all. He wanted to know what June thought about it, despite of what his opinion was.
"Yeah, I guess," she whispered, her voice lowering more and more as she thought about all the doubts roaming her mind.
"What is it? Did he do something?"
June quickly shook her head, trying to compose herself. "He gives me an off vibe. I found out about him when I saved those students. Then we talked, and realized some things that scared the hell out of me."
"Like what?"
"When one of us stops time, the other one can still move if is close enough, but can't do anything. If we're not close enough, the other one isn't affected by the powers. I don't know, I'm probably just being extremely paranoid, but-"
"The thought of someone having the same powers as you do annoys you."
June raised her head towards him and furrowed her eyebrows, biting the inside of her cheek. "What?"
"I know you, June. You felt the same way when I gained my powers. You're not selfish, you're just... self preserving yourself. I've always wondered if you had been on a war in another life, because that's exactly the way you act. You're always on edge, and you feel like everyone's a threat to you. I guess it's because of your powers, and because even between superheroes your abilities are extremely rare. But maybe someone like Simon isn't as bad as you think. He's just like you, you only need to see the positive side of it."
June didn't know whether to smile because he was reassuring her, or cry because he was basically telling her to hang out with Simon without the least glint of jealousy. She really didn't have a chance with him.
"He invited me to Danny's party," she tried.
"Great! You accepted, right?"
She did her best not to start screaming and instead put up a small smile and nodded.
"Well, then, the only thing left is for me to meet him!"
-
Sooner said than done, Simon didn't show up at school for an entire week. Not that June couldn't wait for him to meet Peter, on the contrary, she would have rather killed herself than see the two of them talking, but Peter couldn't stop asking her when he would meet him, and she just wished it would end as soon as possible.
He appeared a week later, looking thinner and generally weaker. It seemed as if he had lived on the streets for years, and June wondered what could have happened that had reduced him that way.
"Is everything alright?" she asked him when they reached their class. He nodded with a weak smile and sat down, slowly grabbing his books. June tried to say something but, when he didn't seem to be very interested in any type of conversation, she reached her chair and sat down, spending the whole lesson looking at Simon's back as if, just by doing that, she would catch up with what was happening to him.
Peter met him at lunch. Even without talking, June and Simon had still decided to eat together and, as soon as they reached the cafeteria, Gwen and Peter had appeared to make them sit with them. It seemed weird to return to the old habit of eating and generally spend most of her time with Peter, even if Simon and Gwen were now way more prominent in their lives than they were before, but she didn't really care about it.
The two boys started talking and laughing as if they had know each other forever. June felt like throwing up half of the time, and spent the rest half looking down at her plate of food and occasionally sharpen her hearing to catch what they were talking about. Gwen remained silent as well, apart from a few glances she sent towards the other three.
When the bell rang, June took a deep breath as she looked around herself, a weird feeling at the pit of her stomach. It was a gut feeling, one she knew extremely well, but nothing seemed odd about her surroundings. Students were normally walking to their classes and Peter and Simon were still talking, while Gwen was silent.
Even if she wanted to, there was nothing June could have done about her feelings, so she just waited for the others to finish and headed to class, even more silent than before.
Ok guys, I just finished writing chapter 30 and I realized I REALLY need to quicken the updates because chapter 32 is probably the epilogue and I don't want to wait a lifetime before having to publish it, so I'll definitely hurry up, hoping it will even bring more readers to be interested in the book (I know for a personal experience that books that update quite fast are more likely to be read ;););) )