September 28th, 2017
The Final Observation
Peter Parker. . .

↯

At this point, Nellie had nearly given up on writing her article for the school paper on Peter. She'd uncovered his secret of being Spider-Man, yet here she was, keeping her own secret from him.

Things between the two were becoming more and more personal; Nellie had been completely honest in her article about everything she'd learned about Peter Parker, from the start of their friendship all the way up to their kiss. However, Nellie had not been completely honest with Peter.

She even included his secret in her article.

Of course, she would never actually publish any of the content she had so far. It was too dangerous and completely deceiving. Peter would never speak to her again, and he'd probably even have to leave school. Any enemy of Spider-Man's—or anyone threatened by him—would know the face behind the mask, leaving Peter in constant danger. She wouldn't dare do that to him.

She sat staring blankly at her computer screen, Observation 13 typed out at the top of her screen. Her mind was blank and she couldn't seem to get her fingers to move across the keyboard as they usually did so effortlessly.

Her mind still replayed the events of last night over and over, at least what she remembered. Her foster mother had found out Tony Stark's arrangements for Social Services to come for Nellie. While Nellie was at school that day, Brenda had taken all of Nellie's belongings to the trash can outside of the apartment building. Nellie's pictures of her family were either broken or torn, her clothes were ruined from the garbage, and her books were missing pages and stained.

Luckily, her laptop remained safe as she took it to school in her backpack everyday. But everything else was now simply gone. All because Brenda could no longer snake money from the government to use for her own selfish purposes.

Nellie was so upset and angry that she'd been locked out of her home, she did something she'd never done before—went to a high school party.

In fact, she went to Liz Allan's party, despite the fact that Peter was once interested in her. She just wanted to do something normal, after the recent chaos that had been created in her life since discovering who Peter really was.

However, she ended up right where the chaos was, anyways. She remembered crawling through Peter's bedroom window, hoping to talk to him about what her foster mother had done. She remembered he wasn't listening to her and before she knew it he was promising her that everything would be okay as he left her alone.

"Nellie," she heard Peter's muffled voice approaching from behind her.

She took her headphones out and turned around, feeling a bit unhappy with him. Other than the two of them, the school library was a ghost town due to the pep rally going on in the gym.

"I'm sorry about last night—" Peter began, but cut himself off.

Nellie realized he'd been distracted by the laptop screen behind her. She felt her stomach drop.

"Are you writing something about me?" The corners of his lips turned up into a smile but she knew soon that smile would turn into a frown once he actually read what she'd written.

She watched as the change happened in less than a second. She chewed on her lower lip nervously as she watched his sparkling, brown eyes flicker side to side as he soaked in the words she'd so carefully written.

"What is this? You're kidding me, right?" He took a step back, his fingers twitching at his sides.

Nellie sighed, standing up from her seat. She stood in front of Peter and took his trembling hands in hers. Their eyes met, his now a shade darker than before. He was upset. And he had good reason to be.

"First of all, I never intended on publishing this. You know I would never expose you like that." She gave his hands a gentle squeeze as to reassure him.

He nodded hesitantly, "And?"

Nellie glanced over her shoulder at her work so far—her words already spilled onto 4 pages by now, and if she continued, she'd be way over the maximum limit the article was allowed to be anyways.

"At the beginning of the school year, I was assigned to write an article about someone at the school I thought might make for an interesting story."

The sparkle returned to his eyes momentarily.

"I picked you, Peter. I wasn't supposed to tell you, though. I also wasn't supposed to write about anything I found out after school hours. I also wasn't supposed to involve any of my personal feelings into the article," she smirked a bit, "Clearly, I've rebelled a bit and broken some of the rules."

Peter pulled her closer to him, "I'm glad you thought I was interesting before you knew about Spider-Man."

Nellie nodded, a genuine smile spreading across her face, "I knew you were different. MJ told me to pick someone else, but I was so sure that you were the perfect subject. I'm sorry that I didn't tell you sooner."

Peter shook his head and released her from his arms, "You don't have to apologize to me, Nell. If anything," he sighed, scratching the back of his neck, "I'm the one who should be saying sorry. I left you alone last night when you needed someone. Let me explain—"

"Peter, it's okay. I have something to tell you," Nellie interrupted, unable to contain the news.

Peter raised a brow, "What is it?"

Nellie narrowed her eyes at him, "Well, you must have forgotten what today was."

"Our anniversary?" He chuckled hesitantly.

Slapping him on the arm, Nellie laughed, "No, dummy, we aren't even dating!"

"We aren't?" Peter asked nervously, with a hint of a smile on his face.

"Are we?" Nellie's heart skipped a beat.

"Hold on, what did you have to tell me?" Peter refocused them, clearly in suspense of what she had to say.

"I met with Social Services this morning. I'm officially free of my wretched foster mother! Well, I guess I was technically free after she kicked me out last night—"

"She did what?" Peter's lip quivered in anger.

Nellie sucked in a breath, "Yeah that's what I came to talk to you about last night. She dumped all my stuff outside in the garbage and locked me out. I tried to use my key but she'd even changed the locks while I was at school."

Normally, a child might feel hurt that someone could do this to them. For Nellie, this was just yet another terrible action Brenda took against her. She was far more upset about her things being ruined than she was about being shut out, but she was definitely furious when she realized she couldn't even sleep in her own bed that night.

"I'm so sorry, Nellie. I feel so horrible for leaving you last night. You were kind of a wreck," he ruffled her hair, her bangs now messily plastered across her forehead.

She shrugged, "I was a wreck because I made a pit stop at Liz Allan's party on my way to you last night. Not one of my finest moments."

Peter scrunched his nose, "Doesn't really seem like your scene."

"Oh, absolutely not. I'm sorry I didn't tell you—"

"You didn't have to, Nells. I could smell the alcohol on your breath from a million miles away."

"Well that's probably just because you're a superhero and probably have super-smell abilities," She teased, poking him on the nose.

Peter rolled his eyes and cupped her cheek, "I definitely do not."

He leaned in, his eyes fluttering to her lips. Their mouths melded together for the slightest second before they heard someone clearing their throat right next to them. Like giddy kids, they jumped apart.

The librarian shook her head disapprovingly, "No kissing in here, capiche? Save that smut for after school." She spat before returning to the rows and rows of books.

Nellie and Peter snorted, their laughter eliciting a sshhhh from her somewhere in the library.

"Okay, okay. So what are we going to do about you for tonight?" Peter inquired, looking down at her.

"I was planning on crashing at MJ's for a few nights. The system said it might take a few weeks—maybe longer—to find a good fit for me. Sadly, most foster parents don't want to take on a foster kid my age from my background," she explained, hating the way it all sounded out loud.

Tony Stark has kept his promise—she was going to get new foster parents. She just didn't realize how long it might take for that to happen.

"I'm sure the perfect people will come along, sweetheart. How could anyone not like Nellie Jenkins?" He grinned, rubbing her back.

She smiled up at him, her heart fluttering. Then she remembered the laptop behind her; something had to be done about this article. If she turned it in, Peter would be in danger. If she didn't turn it in, she would fail.

"About my article. . ."

"Can you delete it, please?" Peter pleaded, his eyes full of worry now.

Nellie nodded, her throat dry. She turned around to her computer and dragged her finger across the mouse pad. Before clicking delete file, she glanced over her shoulder at Peter. This was the only way to keep him and his secret safe. She clicked delete without further hesitation, and suddenly, she was back to square one with her article.

"Thank you," Peter smiled apologetically, pulling her into his arms again. "Oh, I almost forgot. I brought you something," he grinned cheekily.

She cocked her head to the side in wonder, watching as he pulled something metal and shiny from his front pocket.

Peter held up an oval locket that glistened in the light coming from one of the library's skylights.

Nellie felt a smile creep up on her and she leaned forward, plucking it from his hand, "What is this?"

Her fingers opened the locket gently, revealing the tiniest, most delicate petal inside. It was a beautiful, periwinkle blue petal held ever-still inside of glass casing.

"Peter, this is beautiful." Nellie enclosed the locket in her palm and smiled, leaning into his arms.

He pressed his lips to her forehead softly and looked down at her, "It's a petal from a Forget-Me-Not. Just so you will never, ever forget me. If something were to happen, I―"

"Nothing's going to happen to you, Peter. Thank you for giving me this, though. I love it," She held it against her chest, his arms enveloping her small figure.

The warmth of his embrace made all of her problems seem so small and insignificant. She was learning that caring about someone the way she cared for Peter made her more rational; she felt things she'd never felt before for him. Finally, everything was starting to make sense again.