xxi. quiet moments

                                    

                                          



chapter twenty-one!
quiet moments


    SPIDER-MAN no longer showed up at her window at night. That didn't stop Nina from staying up, waiting for him to show each time, hoping that maybe, Peter would land on her fire escape to crawl inside. She had gotten used to him being there still━even if such an inconvenient way━and now that she no longer saw him swinging by in the streets, or tapping against her window pane, Nina sort of missed it. 
      But there was a change. Nina now saw him at school; he talked to her, and they walked the school halls like they used to. He went to his detentions, retook his Spanish Exam and excelled, came back to decathlon and took his old place at Nina's side. Peter Parker was now Peter Parker, and a long time ago, that would have been all Nina would have wanted. But these days she heard sirens outside the window in the distance and knew that Spider-Man wasn't there to stop the crimes. He was Peter Parker, but now, he was also Spider-Man; they were the same person, and Nina didn't think Peter realised that. 
      Yet, it was refreshing to see him back. She couldn't help but admit that. Nina was smiling to herself at lunch, glancing over to Ned and Peter, wondering whether she should drag Michelle and Cia over to sit with them. She chuckled at MJ's drawings of Peter in detention, taking Snapchats of them to save and send over to him, awaiting his reaction across the cafeteria. He'd look up, meet her gaze and she and MJ would snicker at the expression upon his face. 
      Peter and Ned would join Nina and MJ before Decathlon in the afternoons. While MJ would read in the back, the three old friends would work together to build Lego again━Ned bought this huge Lego Star Wars Death Star, and Nina had a light heart the whole time. She missed this. She had missed this so much. She clapped her hands in delight when they placed Darth Vader at the top and MJ spoke up behind them:
     "You guys are still losers."
      Ned had glanced back at her, incredulous, "Then why are you sitting here with us?"
     MJ had met his gaze evenly to say, "Because Nina isn't."
     Nina smiled to herself, happy to hear Michelle say that after spending so long too scared to admit she wanted friends. And here she was, saying that with so much confidence like it was a fact; an actual fact, and Nina was proud of her━it was the closest Nina has gotten so far to MJ saying that she was her friend. 
      But she was also tired, staying up at late night with her gaze fixed on her open bedroom window. 
     It was left unsaid that Nina figured out Peter's secret. But they knew. It hung in the air whenever Nina came to sit down with Peter and Ned in the library under Homecoming banners and the boys didn't hunch up and hesitate in what they would talk about next. Not that they ever had a Spider-Man conversation recently, but Nina felt welcomed back into their small little group like nothing had even happened. They were freshmen again, bright-eyed and excited, meeting Ned and meeting Felicia, destroying each other's light sabers on Decathlon excursions and playing video games while Nina practiced her skateboard tricks or did her homework. 
      Peter was trying to make everything seem normal again, but it wasn't. And while it was great to be ignorant, and believe that everything was okay again, Nina knew it wasn't. She knew there was a sadness to him. When there was a siren during class, he'd glance out at the window━not longingly, but filled with guilt. But he didn't ask for a toilet pass and then never return to class. He stayed, he answered the equation and Flash went purple with fury over it, and he continued his day with a solemn acceptance.
      It wasn't just that that made the days before the Homecoming Dance feeling like they were on the brink of falling off some daunting cliff. Nina could see it in Felicia. Her best friend was distant, not talking as much━tired and placing less of an effort in her cat-wing eyeliner; something she prided herself on. She didn't even answered with emoticons, leaving her messages blank with her signiature answers.