EVEN BEFORE IT ALL WENT WRONG, I HAD KNOWN IT WAS NOT GOING TO BE AN EASY DAY FOR ANYONE.

Sleep had not touched my eyes for even a moment. Even when my aching body cried for relief, my mind refused; all I received for my work were the screams of the dead that so often loved to haunt my dreams. Not wishing to spend the night stifling my tears, I instead chose to stay awake and try to decipher all I knew. Which was nothing, still, but I forced myself  to try and figure it all out anyways. I stayed awake and wrote down everything I knew and thought of on a spare piece of paper and read it over and over again, trying to figure out what Inga or any of it meant.

A bad feeling tickled the back of my mind, but I tried to ignore it and carry on. It did me no good to be worried. Instead, I pushed back my desire for rest and burning fear down and did what I always did. Play pretend.

"...gone," Mary Jane babbled beside me, ending a speech that I had heard practically none of. "I just wanted to punch the guy!"

"Mm, that makes sense."

She shot a look at me as we walked, pushing our way through the crowds - this time, not joined by Gwen, who was let out early due to a dentist appointment. "Hey, you okay? You've been sort of off all day. Actually, just off lately in general."

"I am fine," I snapped, only to realise my myself a moment later. Her face showed alarm, and I was supposed to be nice, not throwing swords of sharp tone whenever a simple question was asked. "Um, how are you?"

The girl just shrugged, looking back as a loud sound boomed - just one of the idiots that populated the building riding the rails with his skateboard - and failing. "I'm okay, just...no, I'm all good. All good in the hood here!"

"Are you..." I hesitated. I wasn't really sure if I should press, because it was not like I actually cared about how she was doing. Right? But the way she had faltered worried me in a way I was sure it shouldn't. And despite the warning in my head, I pushed forward. "Are you okay?"

She turned and stared at me. I watched her back.

I would never tell her, but Mary Jane's eyes had always been strangely fascinating. There was so much vivacity in them, green of a thousand shades, like gardens I had only seen in my dreams filled with life and flowers of a million sorts. I wondered if she knew how much power she had. That she could start wars with just a stare, break entire cities in two with the juniper and emerald and brilliant chartreuse glimmering in those eyes. They were always so full of life, and it usually hurt, to stare into them. 

But today, they weren't quite so bright. As I examined her expression, I found that her eyes were greyer, mournful over something I couldn't quite figure out.

Mary Jane averted her eyes from me, finally, shrugging. "It's hard to explain, Em. And...it's also kind of dumb."

I watched her closely. She seemed a little embarrassed about something, maybe worried, too. "I...it's alright." I reached out and patted her shoulder awkwardly; she flinched a little at the gesture, and my hand slipped away soon after. "I have heard a lot of dumb things. I won't judge you for this one."

Maybe that was not as comforting as I meant it to be. But she still smiled, so I counted it as a victory.

We stood in silence for a few minutes, watching the people race past us, and I was starting to believe she wasn't actually going to share what was troubling her - something I couldn't tell if I liked or felt bad about. Finally, however, she adjusted her stance and spoke. "You know about my whole theatre thing? Well, I mean, I've been doing it since I was little, and it's been my dream since forever to be on stage, but now, I'm not so sure of it. I had a talk with my parents last night, see, and they told me that it was silly, that I was going to waste potential - which, hell, I don't even think I have potential, Em! I mean, theatre is really the only thing I'm good at!"

"I'm...I'm sorry." Though the words I stuttered out were cold and lacking in emotion, I did mean it, or at least a small part of me did. The way she broke at the end, and the way her words stung like little thorns at my heart, I couldn't help but mean it. She was just like everyone else, even though she pretended like she never felt sad or hurt; Mary Jane wore a crown, but at the end of the day, she fell and felt pain just like the rest of the students. 

A thought flitted in my mind; a face I had not seen in what felt like a millennia. At that moment she felt like Francesca, in a twisted, foreign, odd sort of way. They were nothing alike. The life that burned so fiercely in Mary Jane had never reflected in the grey, timid Francesca. But I had seen that same forlorn melancholy in both their eyes before. When one had stepped forward in the courtyard, and when the other stared up at me, begging for an answer I knew I could not give them. They were both tired of their very different worlds. They wanted to fight, but a part of them had already resigned themselves to their fate, and-

No. I shook Francesca out of my head, digging my nails into my palm to distract me. She was gone. Probably dead. And it did not matter, because I did not care about her, or Mary Jane. She would be fine, because she was a silly American girl whose biggest issues were test scores and dates to dances. Her problems were paltry and insignificant. And I could not concentrate on them, when there was a new one buzzing angrily in my hand. The real issue at hand.

"Look," I began, "I think that it's your choice to continue your theatre work, but if you don't think it's right, don't do it. Right? Just...do what you think is right and all that."

Mary Jane frowned and cocked her head to the side, her red-tinged bangs falling over her eyes. "What do you even me-"

"Sorry, I have to go. I will talk to you tomorrow?" My eyes were trained on my phone at that moment, however, not her. I barely managed a wave before getting out of my position and racing off. "Bye."

In normal circumstances, I'd feel bad for leaving her like that, or at least the tiniest bit of remorse for her state. However, at the moment I had bigger things to deal with; the dot that represented Peter on my phone was moving strangely and sporadically, and nothing about that seemed right. The signal kept flashing in and out, too, like the power was being cut off every so often, and I had the sinking feeling that the boy wasn't just taking a quiet stroll.

...

I arrived too late; by the time I slid behind a nearby wall and took notice of the crumpled body in the alley, the lightning/man hybrid was nowhere to be seen. However, it wasn't too hard to assume just what had happened, and I knew that the Parker boy probably didn't have the strength to move a single muscle at the moment.

There was no plan, this time; I wasn't dressed in any disguise, I was simply Emily Newman, the innocent, peppy, slightly-irritating girl who was now watching her classmate groan from several volts lacing up and down his body just minutes before. Exposing myself would mean that I couldn't pretend to be in the dark anymore; if I said something, it would be too late for that, and soon all the secrets would tumble out of the black bag like there was no point anyway.

A part of me itched to turn away, to pretend like I hadn't seen this; someone would find him eventually, or he'd managed to crawl home like he always had before. The point of this mission was the watch the boy, not play nanny, and I could potentially get in trouble myself for stepping in. However, another part made me stay, watching the boy while battling myself, unsure of the right move to make.

I peeled away from the shadows, standing cautiously several feet away, still not noticed by the writhing boy. I took note that he was barely dressed in his ridiculous costume, and he hadn't had the time to slide the backpack off before his fight. At least there was one positive; without that, I might not have found him.

"Peter!"

A single word, barely reverberating through the alleyway, but enough to get his attention and make him jolt with shock - or just the after-effects of the electricity, I wasn't sure. Still, he clambered away, gritting his teeth through the pain as he pulled away. "Holy shi- Emily, what - this isn't - it's not -"

"Relax," I mumbled, rushing over and helping him lean against the brick wall, bracing his still-shaking body with all my strength as he almost screamed in pain. "Don't talk, okay? You're obviously not really in a state to do that."

He moved to speak, but decided against it, simply watching me in a clear state of shock and fear, holding back his groans like somehow that would prove he was much stronger than he was. It wasn't hard to tell that he was still in great pain, for his whole body shook, still gripped by the effects of the man, and blood dripped from a wound on his arm, staining his homemade outfit. I took note of the major wounds and calculated in my head how long it would take to help him; with luck, I could have him bandaged and cleaned up in twenty minutes if I rushed. Too much longer, and I suffered the chance of being found out, so it would have to do.

I handed him a cloth to hold to his arm, pulling out several more supplies from my bag. "You need to be more careful with these kinds of things, Peter. Or, I guess, Spiderman? Which one do you prefer to go by, now?"

The boy chuckled faintly, but immediately regretted it, judging by his pained expression. "How....how did you find...out?"

"You, um, dropped something at that party you ran off from." I held up the web cartridge, which had sat in the bottom of my pocket and now proved to be a worthy excuse. "It wasn't exactly difficult to catch on that you and the friendly neighbourhood Spiderman were one and the same. And, I guess now, I know I was right."

"Are you going to...tell anyone?"

I raised a teasing eyebrow as I rifled through my bag, searching for supplies. "Why, you think I'm that kind of person? I'm not an ass, Peter. Your secret is safe with me."

"Thanks," he mumbled, turning a slight red - though that could have just been from the pain. "I have so many...questions now."

"Shoot."

"Well, how did you know I'd be here?"

My hands grew clammy with worry at his words, and I forced a smile through my brain racing with nervous thoughts. "Um, I was nearby, and I saw you. It wasn't hard to know it was you?"

The boy frowned. "You were..here? Why?"

"Errands?" I squeaked, voice rising an octave as I searched for a good solution to the presented problem. "Here, press this to that; it'll hold the blood better."

While I didn't look at him, it wasn't difficult to know his eyes were watching my every moment, burning a hole through my fabricated answers. "You have a lot of things in that bag of yours."

I shrugged, "my mother is a nurse, and she's always afraid I'll get hurt somehow."

"Oh."

The silence grew to envelop us, me passing him bandages and supplies without speaking and him awkwardly doing his best to do as I indicated. It was clear he had a lot to say, but he seemed to understand my want for quiet at the moment. Instead, he just hurt in silence and let me help him, surprisingly lenient to the offer - I would have thought there would be more protesting, but I suppose the pain racking his body would stop that.

Finally, I leant back and helped him stagger to his feet, watching with a genuine concern I didn't think my mind was capable of. "You're in no state to walk, Peter - just take a moment, please."

"Well," he gritted out, tense as I held onto him, "I'll be okay - we..spiders...heal faster than most."

"You're not a spider, though, you're Peter Parker, an idiot who's going to get himself killed."

A smile flickered on his lips, though it was quickly replaced by flashes of pain. "I'm not an idiot, you know?"

"I know that," I replied, "otherwise I would have walked right past you and pretended like I hadn't ever even heard of the boy who wore a onesie and spun webs and flew in the air like a lunatic. I'm just saying that you're taking too much onto yourself by yourself. You're still a kid."

"Are you...Tony Stark...or something?"

I gave up trying to hold him up and we sank back down, hidden from any view of passing people. My lip stung as I nibbled on it, creating new wounds on top of old ones, but the pain wasn't bad, it kept me level-headed. "All I'm saying is...you acting like this, taking on so much, you're going to dig your own grave in the end. People take notice of you; they'll want to use you."

Peter looked at me, startled by my words. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know. Forget it." It was far from that; I did know, I just wasn't completely sure why I had brought that up in that way. Maybe it was a warning, though I didn't even know what I was warning the boy about. "It's just important to realise now that you're still a kid, and people will take a lot of advantage of that. Especially whoever did this to you; hell, maybe there's something more that you don't know of attached to them like it's a bigger plan than you know."

"I've been told that," he mumbled, staring at the wall across from us, "I just...if you can make a difference, why shouldn't you? The world's a dangerous place, yeah, but if you can make it just the littlest bit better, it's worth the risk and consequences. Right?"

I smiled, just the tiniest bit, though his words only brought serious thoughts to me. "Yeah. I guess you have a point."

"Of course I do, I'm Spiderman."

"That's a terrible excuse for your problems."

Peter's face lit up in a small, bloody grin as he wearily accepted my hand. "Sure, but it makes me sound so much cooler, you know?"

Despite myself, as we fell back down to the ground, Peter's body almost lax in my trembling hands, I smiled softly. In that moment, it was easier to be Emily, for it was so close to how I felt; worry struck me deeply, though maybe not in the way he assumed, and his awkward charm at the wrong moments still could make me feel a little better. For a brief moment of time, Emily and Freya had the same mind and wishes and hopes for the boy and the same fears that polluted the world, and that was almost strangely...liberating.

"Emily?"

I glanced up, snatched from my brief reverie to stare at the boy. "Yeah?"

"Thanks," he mumbled. "For..all this. And for not saying anything to anyone."

In an instant, the grin faded into a frown of deep pain as his words acting like small knives of pure ice, stabbing down at my heart and rendering me speechless for a moment. It took me a second to get my words back together, to look up at him and give the perfect face of utter and complete innocence he was waiting for. "Of course, Peter; I'd never tell anyone. You can trust me."

I know I said I wasn't going to update, and I'm still not eager to press publish because I don't want people to think, well, I dunno -  this was ready and a few people were pestering, so, here's the update, thanks for bothering about it. I hope it's written okay, I didn't have much time to edit it so it's a tad short and messy but...eh, I hope it is okay. It's a pivotal point in their relationship, so, expect some more cute shit coming along and lots more secrets spilt. This is one of my favourite chapters, and I hope you enjoyed it too.

Thank you for reading.