I FELT LIKE DEATH.

Getting electrocuted by a strange man who shot lightning out of his fingers and contained it in his strangely coloured figure on its own was hard enough on a body; after running 'home', I collapsed and felt the adrenaline and fear of the boy finding me out leave my body in a rush, leaving me helpless. However, getting back was far from a good thing - if anything, it was far worse.

I held my injured torso with trembling fingers and scooted away from the furious Inga, trying to get up and defend myself. Blood tripped like a slow falling tear from my cheek, and I cursed, knowing it would take a lot of product to cover that up in the morning. "I told you, I was just trying to follow orders!"

"By exposing yourself?" she shrieked. We were lucky that Inga had things that helped contain noise, else noise complaints surely would be filed, due to the volume of her shrill cries and the numerous sounds of fists hitting already injured flesh. "Have you any idea what you have done, Freya? You could have just ruined everything - not just for you, but for everyone!"

"I just needed to save his life!"

"That is not your job!"

I finally staggered to my feet, rising to my full height and glaring in a mix of pain and anger. My ribs throbbed at every moment, but it was easier to ignore when there was something to overpower it - and the confusion and anger at the woman before me was enough adrenaline and more. "What does that mean? I thought I was supposed to protect the boy?"

She struck me again, twisting my hands away from her and holding me in a grip like iron, forcing me to curl up and squirm as her nails dug into bony wrists. "Your job is to watch him and make sure he doesn't mess up. We told you that, идиот!"

"But he did mess up," I croaked out, falling free and shielding myself from her flurry of blows to my face and body, "which is why I did something. If I hadn't done anything, he would have been dead!"

Again, Inga spat on me as she punched. Her blows fell onto me blocked, but one made it through my clumsy defence, causing me to groan out and slip to the floor. "That's not your problem! You're not a hero, идиот, you're a spy sent to do her job, not ruin everything else!"

Her words caused me stop and sit up, dodging a hit clumsily and watching her in shock. "So if he's dying, you want me to let him die? I thought you needed him alive, not six feet underground! What are you trying to do to him?"

"We're doing nothing to him," she hissed, drawing closer. "Whatever is to happen is not your business; you're just there to watch him. Anything else is out of your hands."

"You're going to kill him!"

Her back stiffened, and it was obvious my questions were maddening her, but at this point, I was in so much pain I couldn't care how mad she was; I wanted answers, answers only she could give me. "No one is going to die except for you if you don't shut up."

"Not until...you tell me...what's going on!"

She smiled and let her bitter chuckles bounce off the ceiling, pinning my reaching hand to the ground with a booted foot. "No, you will shut up because if you don't, you won't make it back to Russia. Do you understand?"

"So you're going to kill me-"

"Do you understand, Freya?"

I fell back limply, hitting my head hard against the wooden floorboards and feeling salty tears sting at my eyes. "Yes, I understand. But you better not be-"

"Better be nothing." She removed her foot, though not before driving into the stained boards, and stomped off. "Clean yourself up."

I watched her leave but didn't move from the floor, simply laying curled up while the waves of pain enveloped my body and filled me with nothing but misery and sadness and anger and worry for both my life and the boy I was sent to protect. For, while I didn't care about him, his death meant nothing good for me. I couldn't live with more blood on my unwashed hands, and I certainly couldn't live with failure - if he died, I would be nothing, and my own death would be inevitable.

Something wasn't right; I would have to be an idiot to believe otherwise. I didn't know why Inga got so upset over my actions, or why she got so defensive over my questions, or why I wasn't allowed to step in and save the boy. There was something else going on, and I had the aching feeling my role was going to be much less significant than originally believed.

...

"Emily?"

My frown only grew larger as Peter tapped my shoulder, but I kept up my steady pace and didn't give him a second glance. "What is it?"

He seemed to immediately sense the sour mood - something that mollified me the tiniest bit, but only made it more annoying when he continued his conversation. "I, um, just wanted to see how you were? Did you finish the science homework?"

"Okay, so talking to me only includes science homework notes?"

"What? No, I just - just wasn't sure if you did it or not. I didn't think that's all you did; you probably have much cooler and better things to do than doing homework all night, I just wanted to ask and-"

"Shut up," I gritted out, increasing my pace just the tiniest bit and trying to figure out a way to lose the boy. While it was still my job to watch him, after the events of last night, I didn't want to look at the boy's face in a thousand years - and even then I'd have some difficulties. Looking at him only seemed to make the pain in my torso magnify, overpower my thoughts and making it hard to think properly. "Stop rambling on like an idiot and get to the point of whatever pitiful speech you're trying to charm me with, alright? This whole act is getting rather annoying."

I wished there was a way to take back things said. I wished I had a time machine to move back even a couple seconds or minutes and just change the words that came from my mouth so that instead of insulting him and telling him things that would push him away, I could just smile and lead him along like a little puppy on a leash. On a normal day, I - or, Emily at least - wouldn't have said those things, she would have nodded along and smiled, just like the ditzy idiot she was. The thoughts that poisoned my mind would have stayed in my mind, and things would be alright between the two of us - Freya and Emily normally didn't mix, not like that.

However, there was no such thing in this universe, and my words were still left as daggers to the Parker boy's confidence, leaving him looking hurt and wounded like I had just stabbed him in the heart and left him to die. "Right, well, okay. Sorry."

"Peter, wait-"

"-No, it's okay, I get it," he replied, forcing a sad smile on his solemn face and taking a few steps away from me. "See you in class, okay?"

I watched him leave, shoulders hunched and racing off to sit alone, heart pounding. There was a part of me that thought to run after him, to apologise straight away, but Freya bit that back and turned away; if he was upset, he would want some time to mellow and think over my words, and me chasing him down could only make things worse. Emily would have to make things better later, somehow. 

"Emily?"

"Gwen?" I forced out, still kicking myself for saying those things to Peter. "Um, hi! What are you doing?"

She smiled and shrugged, waving a pile of papers that always seemed to sit in her hands. She looked slightly frazzled, pieces of hair escaping the iron grip of her customary headband, and if I cared, I would have been worried what she was stressing about. "Oh, just some council stuff, is all, no biggie. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, you just look rather upset, and Peter just stormed off like you had done something absolutely awful to him, so I'm assuming that everything isn't peaches and cream?"

Dammit, she was good, I'd have to give her that. However, I just smiled weakly and ducked my head, "he just needed to do something, is all. No big deal."

She didn't buy it, of course; instead of letting go of the topic, she frowned and patted my arm in what I assumed was supposed to be comforting but was really just annoyed. "Look, I'm sure it'll be okay. Peter doesn't really hold grudges, and he's pretty easy-going - as in, once I stole like a thousand pencils from the guy when we had English together, and he still gives me one if I ask. Whatever happened will be over by the third period, I'm sure of it."

"Well, thanks, but we're okay. I mean, I'm okay. He's Peter."

"Right," she nodded, still looking extremely unconvinced. "Well, now that you're standing alone in this hallway, would you like to have lunch with us? We haven't seen you in such a long time, and Mary Jane and I are sitting in the cafeteria today?"

"I don't know-"

"Please?" the girl asked again, cutting me off and begging slightly. Her dark eyes sparkled with hope, and she looked almost like a puppy, one that you wanted to hate but couldn't get up the guts to do so. "It would mean a lot?"

I didn't want to; I needed to figure out my next move and how to get things alright with Peter again, at least before the day ended. I didn't have the time to waste with silly girls at lunch, to listen to their dull conversation and pretend to be interested in the words that fell out of their mouths like shrill, high-pitched maggots with pink ribbons. 

"Sure."

Gwen's face lit up, and she gripped my forearm tightly as she pulled me through the crowds, babbling about something or other that was of no real interest to me. 

As we walked/I was dragged, my hand slipped into my pocket and I clicked on the Parker boy's contact, pulling up my texts to send a simple message; 'I'm sorry'. It wouldn't do much, and it probably wouldn't make everything better again, but at least I tried to be sincere and make up for my mistake. Hopefully, he would buy my apology, as the idea of saying 'sorry' was foreign and not one I particularly enjoyed.

Not two minutes later, with us just drawing near the table, my phone lit up again, with just two words, 'it's okay'. Nothing more and nothing less, but at least it was something. And despite myself, I gave a small smile.

Sigh, another filler, very short but shows - yet again - character development that's necessary but not all that exciting - however, the first bit is extremely important, and there were a lot of subtle hints dropped in there that'll explain some things if you read closely. I mean, none of this is going to make sense until the very end of the series, but there's a little something.

Gwen and MJ are going to be friends in this story, but yes, Harry Osborn isn't in this - I have reasons why, but y'all don't need to attack me for including those people along with other classic characters. They're also friends because while in a lot of comics/the movies, they're not, I've also seen arcs where they are and hell, I'm writing it like that. The other Homecoming characters will be in this - and I mean, Ned already is - but when I wrote this, I didn't know much about them, so cut me some slack.

Also, if you ever see Ned 'Leeks' instead of Ned 'Leeds', it's because autocorrect keeps changing it and I've only noticed now that it did that to half of them. Stop coming for me, I know that Ned is not a green vegetable often used in soups.

Thank you for reading!