IT WAS STRANGE, FOR OFFICIALLY, it was my second time visiting the Parker boy outside of school. However, that was far from the actual truth - I had spent many-a-night watching on the fire escape or tailing him home, watching him and waiting for anything, something that could get me the answers I craved so desperately. Most of the time I left empty-handed, but at least it meant the route was more ingrained in my head than my own 'house', and there wasn't a chance of getting lost.

His aunt answered the door, and I watched as her eyes lit up in a funny sort of way. She recognised me, but there was more behind the gaze. Something I didn't see in many people; a strange emotion I seemed to lack.

"Peter's in his room." When she saw my brows raise, her naïve smile lifted even higher. She was a pretty woman, I had to admit, even though her joy seemed...ill placed. "He mentioned you two were working on your project today, so he's been waiting."

"Oh." Waiting for me; he was waiting for me. That meant he was excited or at least interested in being in the same room with me - I was having an effect on the boy. "Thank you."

I could feel her eyes on me as I headed down the now-familiar room to the closed door, and it bothered me - I didn't need to face her to know her smirk was still dancing on her face. She was annoying, and for some reason always bothering Peter to ask if he was okay and meddling in things she should not. It was strange, to me, that she could meddle so much and not know that the boy she was guarding was a villain of New York. The Spider-man.

Peter opened the door after only two knocks, causing me to stumble back as it swung open. "Sorry, didn't mean to scare you-"

"-it's totally fine," I gushed, forcing a smile back on my face. Like the one I had seen his aunt just wearing, only I knew it lacked her genuine delight. "It is fine, don't worry about it." I shrugged the shoulder my backpack rested on. "Ready to get to work?"

He nodded, ushering me into his room - this time, much more clean and organised than the first real visit I had paid. His things were piled nicely and everything had found a place, books and miscellaneous devices stacked carefully to give the appearance of a clean room. A smile flickered on my lips as I glanced at the loose panel in the ceiling, knowing full well what was inside but gave no sign of recognition otherwise. I only set my things down and smiled like the dazed and always polite Emily would, eyes sparkling like good was actually something that existed in the world.

I tore my eyes away from my scrutinising and beamed his way. My body sank easily down into his bed and I had to fight back a cringe. How the hell did he sleep on that? 

Peter followed me hesitantly. He shuffled awkwardly at the very edge of his mattress; I scooched a little closer, still smiling from ear to ear. "What do you want to do first?"

"Uh, w-well," he began, grabbing his laptop, "I figured we could begin on the presentation itself? We have most of the research, we just need to work on our ideas and how we're going to present them, right?"

I raised my brows, still shuffling nearer. "Right to work with you, huh Peter?"

"I - well, yeah, I-I mean I don't want to run out of time or, or anything."

How exciting was this, I wondered to myself. What did Inga expect me to gain from him? All it ever was with Peter was school. Still, Emily couldn't feel that way, so I nodded. "That sounds fine with me."

"Is that okay?"

No, not really. I had no interest in sitting for hours, staring at a screen with words and numbers that meant nothing to me while Peter just stared and typed on his keyboard, somehow finding joy in the calculations. It had taken every ounce of me to learn about the research itself - the Academy had never cared much about scientific discoveries like ours - and I was sure I was going to break. "Yes, yeah. That's fine with me."

"Okay," the boy replied, corners of his mouth twitching into a small smile. So clueless, so oblivious to the tsunami of boredom pouring off of my body. "Great!"

I was beginning to hate this mission even more.

...

Two hours. It had been two hours, three minutes, and forty-seven seconds since we sat down and started working, yet it felt like years had melted away in his small, cramped room. The boy, confident in what he was doing and sure of everything, tapped away and worked on a beautiful presentation, while I slowly stabbed everything and anything that had done this to me, imagining their heads against the dartboard on his wall and full of tiny arrows. 

I was not here to study. Not compounds and formulas and how to change fonts on Peter's stupid computer. The boy was my subject, yet all I had managed to learn was that he cared way too much about making 'slides' (a weird term, but one I didn't ask him to elaborate one because I knew it would make me look stupid). He would not even look at me. 

I had to fix it. For my sanity, and my life's sake.

"How about we take a break?" I chirped, stretching my previously-curled legs out. I prodded at his thigh with my foot, grinning wider when he jumped. "I mean, come on, Peter."

The boy looked up at me hesitantly, fingers still poised on the keyboard. "What do you mean?"

"Well, we have loads of time until this is all due, and we're so close to getting done. I think we deserve a little time off from it!"

Peter watched me warily. Which was good; he looked nervous, but at least he was looking at me. "What are you suggesting?"

"Well, I don't know - I just feel like we barely know each other, right? I mean, we've only really talked about homework or school, and although those are both great things - I guess - I have no idea who the real Peter Parker really is. What if I've been reading you wrong all this time?"

"W-what?"

Okay, so the over-the-top peppy speech hadn't got him; he stared at me in confusion and worry, eyebrow raised as I stood in front of him. I wasn't sure exactly where to go, but a small part of my brain urged me to 'get to know him', so I shrugged, "I have no idea. I just feel like if we're going to be friends, we have to know something about each other. That's how friendship works, right?"

"I...guess," he mumbled, still sounding super unsure. Still, Peter closed the lid of his computer and I took that as a sign I had at least some of his attention. "Um, what do you want to know?"

Well, where did you get your magical spider abilities, how do you manage to be so damn elusive, and can you sell your soul to the Academy - or at least your body? "I don't know. Um...what is your favourite colour?"

The boy started at my question, but visibly relaxed; he clearly thought the question was going to be much bigger than something trivial like that - I had almost dared to, but decided to go for something basic. "Um...I don't know, I don't think about it much. I guess it would be red?"

"Cool, yeah - red is a great colour, great one." I was flopping horribly at this; I should have planned this out or at least figured out what I was going to say after  I started the conversation up. Asking about colours was a dumb move, but I wasn't sure really what people talked about. "How about your favourite food?"

He smiled a little at this one before speaking, "cherry pie, probably. Homemade cherry pie. What about you?"

It is not about me, dumbass! I wanted to scream at him. But mutual reciprocity was a part of relationships, and it wasn't his fault I had no idea how to answer such meaningless, trivial questions. The movies I had seen did not ask about colours and foods. Not that I would go down that route, because Peter would have a heart attack at those questions, but -

"I like pizza," I blurted, the first thing that came to mind.

"Really?"

"Yes, I had never had it before, and-" The second the sentence had left my lips, panic filled my system, its ice cold fingers numbing my malfunctioning mind. идиот! "What I mean, is-"

"-You hadn't ever had pizza before?" Peter leant forward curiously, a shy smile tickling his lips again. "Why not?"

A nervous laugh left my lips as I racked my brain. "Well...my mother was not a fan. And it was never really a common thing, where I lived. New York just had it everywhere."

"Oh, well, that makes sense." Peter didn't lose the interested spark in his eyes, however, and instead kept watching me. Suddenly it felt like I was the prey, and he the predator. "What was Canada like? I've never been, and I don't know much about it - was it beautiful?"

At least there was something I could talk about - or at least studied about. "Well, yeah, I guess people could say that. It was mostly very spacious - we lived outside of the city, where there would be more hills and grass than people. But, it was beautiful, and there were flowers everywhere; flowers were a big part of cultures, and almost everyone had one somewhere in their homes."

That image was painted right out of a brochure I had read while flying to New York. There had been a family on the cover, glossy faces smiling up at me as they ate their evening meal and laughed amongst one another. Flowers had decorated their tablecloth - a luxury I had never seen in real life before - but there was also a vase of pink and yellow in the centre, gloriously filling up space. As I had flipped through the pages, it told me that the city I had 'come' from, just outside of these Niagara Falls had a great agricultural base and many people cared for their gardens and their flowers.

"Why did you come to New York, then? If it was so great?"

I shrugged. "My mother wanted better education for me, and we needed a change, I guess. Schools are better and it is different. In a good way."

"Oh," he mumbled, fiddling with his laptop again. He seemed to grow awkward again, unsure of his next words like somehow he'd offend me - adorable, for some, but unfortunately not the Peter I needed. "Well, Midtown's a pretty great school, I guess."

"Well, considering they own my first 'pizza experience', it's great."

The boy furrowed his eyes, frowning at me in confusion. "Wait for a second; you've only had that pizza?"

"Yes, I-"

"That's barely pizza, Emily - there are so many better choices! I mean, that's garbage compared to the others! I have to take you to the best ones!"

"Take me?"

He immediately wilted as he realised his words and fell back, turning a bit pink. "I mean, you know...give you a list because I wouldn't just take you somewhere, that would be kidnapping, and of course you wouldn't really want to go there with me, and...just forget it."

"No, but-"

He shook his head, getting up and fiddling with a piece of ancient technology that I had watched him take out of the trash only days before. "It's fine, I messed up my words. Anyways, you were saying?"

The conversation was over; I had unknowingly somehow embarrassed the boy, and now he was clamming up like he always did, trying to pretend like nothing had happened. It was beginning to develop into an irritating habit; everytime he dared to say something, he took it back and we were at the same spot we had been before. I wasn't even sure what I had done; all I had done was reply to a question, yet he took it like a bullet had pierced his heart and my gun was still smoking in my hand. It didn't make sense.

"Well, okay," I murmured, watching him anxiously fiddle with random things and fix objects that were the slightest bit out of place. Suddenly, an idea came to mind. I felt myself inch forward, leaning to try and catch his eye. "I mean, it would be useful if you did show me. I don't know much about New York, and since you know what's good here, you'd be as good as a tour guide as any, right?"

The boy froze, standing with his back to me and hands trembling slightly as they held a small plug of sorts. "Really?"

"Yes?" This was strange - well, even stranger than it normally was. "Are you alright, Peter?"

"Y-yeah, yeah, I'm fine." The boy turned and smiled, though he didn't look like the normal Peter I was growing used to; his face was paler, and he nervously blinked like my words had somehow caused him to go into a shock. "Um, well, yeah. C-cool."

"Cool...what?"

"Nothing. Just...nothing."

I frowned, watching him circle back around and open his computer once more, staring at the screen like the most interesting thing in the world had popped up. "...right. Well, I should get going; In-my mother, she'll be worrying." Yeah, worrying if I got what she needed.

"Going?"

Not turning to look at him, I nodded, throwing my papers back into the bag and trying to tidy up the mess of work. "Yeah, it's getting later on. We just were working so long, guess you didn't notice."

Peter didn't respond, but I could feel the air in the room grow tenser, and I knew he was sitting on his bed, staring at the floor and contemplating his next move. Finally, as I stood up once more, he stood too, running a hand through his hair almost on reflex. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"

"-You don't need to be sorry," I replied, smiling through my insides felt like they were being engulfed with angry, boiling fire. "You didn't do anything wrong; I just need to leave. That's all."

He nodded, hesitated, took the tiniest step closer so that we were only a couple feet apart - not a hard feat in his closet-like bedroom. "W-well, you know...I'll see you Monday, I guess."

"Yeah."

"Wait."

I cocked an eyebrow at him, turning back around and watching him fidget even more. "Yes?"

Words were seemingly failing the boy, as he stuttered and flopped in the doorway like a fish out of water just realising the knife on the table was waiting for him. "I just...I just didn't know if you were going to the party? Next week?"

"Party...oh, that party?" I shrugged, "I might be, it depends. Why?"

"Oh, no reason, just wanted to know if I'd see you there. That's all. Really." He laughed nervously, thinking that would break the tension but in the end failing miserably. "Just a question."

My eyes furrowed at him, and I couldn't understand what this boy was on about; he was nervous over a simple question, though it was just like he was asking the weather or something about the particle theory. "Well, okay. I'll let you know if I am, okay? At least there's a bigger chance with you there, though, considering I know like two people in this school."

"O-okay, sure!"

"Bye, Peter," I said, finally turning away and heading the way I had come hours before, not bothering to tell his irritating aunt I was leaving - I was sure she'd notice the door slam behind me, and if she didn't, that wasn't my problem.

The Parker boy was a strange kid, and this meeting certainly didn't clear anything up - if anything, it just made it harder to read his character. In certain things he was as confident as Icarus, flying as close to the sun as he could without melting his wings, and in others, he was just a shy kid who somehow couldn't get his words out of his mouth properly. Peter never stuttered unless he was nervous, and I wasn't sure why pizza made the boy nervous - something was up with him, surely. I just wasn't sure what.

Okay so yes, I did say Wednesday and Friday was gonna be the update days, but y'all planning out my schedule, this works better - my other Peter Parker story + another one is updated that day, so, we're going Tuesday and Friday around 4:30 - 5:00 [in case you wanted to know the times, I know some people have asked me that so there you go haha].

There we go, the fluffy chapter I promised y'all! Okay, so yeah, it's not sunshine and rainbows but please, bear with me guys - it's hard to write fluff when this is a hella dark storyline and the OC is a ruthless Red Room assassin if that makes sense? However, I really like how this turned out - Freya's oblivious to social cues because obviously, it's not a huge topic when learning how to be a teenager [smh Academy step up your teaching] and I think this is sort of hella adorable? I don't know, might just be me. If you don't think this is fluffy, well...the next chapter is sort of? Not really? I mean, it has its moments. Actually, I think the fluffiest and my favourite chapter is 32 - which incorporates the finale to the pizza sub-plot, but the pizza is gonna be a huge part of this now.

Also, I had no idea what Peter's favourite food was, but apparently one source said it was homemade cherry pie, so I went with it - I mean, they also said his favourite meal with Mary Jane, but guys, let's keep it PG. I chose this one, but say what you want - sub in whatever you think is his favourite food, I don't care.

I hope you enjoyed, thank you for reading!