CHAPTER FIFTEEN

━━━━━━ 🌻 ━━━━━━

Mae knows that without a doubt- this is the most awkward moment of her life.

Has she ever been more embarrassed in her life than she is now? Nope.

Does she want to run away to a corner and hide forever? Absolutely.

Peter continues to gape at her like a deer in headlights, eyes wide and mouth open as if he is trying to say something but suddenly, his tongue has gone numb. He won't stop staring at her- and not in a way that gives Mae butterflies- this stare makes Mae feel like she's standing alone on a podium with the spotlight on her and a hundred eyes locked on her but she's motionless and awkward and suddenly has stage fright.

Mae wants to explain to Peter why Gwen thinks they're dating, or rather, why Mae told Gwen that they were dating. But she can't when Peter is looking at her like that and definitely not when Gwen is still in the room, her eyes excitedly switching between the 'couple'.

So, Mae should somehow manage to explain everything to Peter whilst Gwen is in the room, albeit quickly, because Sarah told her that her mother wanted to tell her some SHIELD business, and honestly, her incessant need to just have all the answers are taking over the wheel in her mind today.

She resolves to use her facial expressions to explain the situation to the obviously shocked teenager. Peter had told her about his spider tingling or whatever he calls it, so it shouldn't be that hard to convey her message.

She raises her eyebrows, widens her eyes, tilts her head, narrows her eyes, pouts her lips, opens her eyes even wider, scratches her cheek, narrows her eyes again and finally shrugs her shoulders.

That should do it.

Peter's expression doesn't falter though, and that makes Mae kinda worried. "P-Pete?" She calls softly, eyebrows perked expectantly.

Peter still doesn't respond. He reminds her so much of a statue this way- silent, still, speechless- Mae wonders for a second if she should go dump him in a museum or something. Did he even blink the last few seconds?

"Jesus Christ," It's Gwen who interrupts the awkward silence. The silver-blonde covers her mouth as she laughs, eliciting a pretty sound that slightly relaxed Mae, given how Gwen has been mostly crying this whole week. "If you needed some privacy, you should've just so."

She shakes her head dramatically, moving towards the door as she bites her lips to stop another laugh. Gwen looks back at the alleged couple as she opens the door, "I'll be back in five minutes though, okay?"

Mae can only nod in silent agreement as Gwen leaves the room, causing the honey-blonde let out a sigh she didn't know she was holding. She strides towards the statue in front of her which is Peter Parker. "Peter!" She whisper-shouts.

It earns her a minute reaction, one that Mae is glad for as he moves his eyes to look down at her. Mae resists the urge to punch Peter's face for being dramatic. It's not like she told Gwen he was Spider-Man, is it?

"Peter if you're gonna continue with the silent treatment, I swear I will tell Gwen you're Spider-Man."

That does the deed as Peter instantly closes his mouth. Mae sighs a breath of relief, "Thank you."

"Y-yeah..." Peter stutters, eyeing the girl in front of him suspiciously. "I'm just very, very confused."

"And that's exactly why I'm trying to explain the situation to you!" Mae exclaims. "Did you not understand what I was trying to say through my facial expressions?"

"You were trying to tell me something?" Peter blinks. "I thought you were trying to control your laugh or something."

"What?" Mae tries not to scream. "I thought you'll be able to understand it through your spidey senses!"

"My spidey senses warn me when something is about to happen! It's not a translator for some poorly executed sign language!"

Mae huffs, braiding her arms across her chest. "That wasn't sign language." She deadpans.

"I wasn't sure what else to call it." Peter reverts.

Mae groans, throwing herself on Gwen's bed. "Just listen, will you?"

She feels the mattress sink when Peter sits next to her. "Okay, I'm all ears. And very confused too."

Mae ignores his remark and turns to face him. He's so close to her and if her face wasn't already red with embarrassment, it would have looked like she was sunburnt. Although Mae feels her cheeks heat up when she realises that from this closeness, she can read all the creases and marks that scatter on his face, that if she stares at him for long enough, she can memorise them.

She clears her throat, looking away from him. "So, uh, Gwen sort of overheard our conversation on the phone the other day."

Peter furrows his eyebrows. "What conversation?"

"When you told me about the antidote." Mae clarifies. She bites her lips, her embarrassment flushing back over her when she recounts the incident. "She heard the code, and she asked me about it. Honestly, I know I could have come up with something better, but it was like my brain suddenly stopped functioning. I- I couldn't think of anything clever, so I just told her I was dating someone, not you. It's not like I could have just told her you were Spider-Man. But then she asked if it was you who I was dating, and I had to agree because she wouldn't have believed me otherwise." A guilty pout finds her lips. "I'm sorry that you got into this mess because of me, Pete."

"Oh, no. No no no, it's fine." Peter shakes his head, he looks away from Mae as her eyes meet his. "You did all this to keep my secret safe, right? So I'm sorry that you got into this mess because of me."

But in all honesty, Peter isn't sorry at all. For some reason, he likes the idea of someone thinking that he was Mae's boyfriend and that it was Mae who said it herself. He feels some sort of weird pride over that fact and he really tries to push out the blush that is trying to creep its way onto his cheeks. He keeps evading eye contact with Mae because he knows that if he looks at her hazel eyes for even a second, he won't be able to stop that blush anymore.

"Are you ever going to tell Gwen, though?"

Mae's question catches him off-guard. He looks at her for a second with wide eyes as he processes it. Peter would want nothing more than to tell Gwen- he doesn't want her to be left out of it, she is an important friend to him, after all. But Peter can't tell her the truth- he can't and won't. All because he promised her dead father.

Peter just shrugs in response to her question and shakes his head. Mae just sighs, bobbing her head. "I still can't believe I'm the only one who knows it," Mae reveals. "A part of me feels like I don't deserve to know, but another is so excited that her best friend is Spider-Man."

"Wait, why do you feel like you don't deserve to know?" Peter asks.

"I mean, it's too big of a secret, y'know?" She says. "And I'm such a loudmouth- what if I accidentally blurt it out, or something?"

Although Mae knows the last sentence won't happen. Do you know how many secrets Mae has to keep because of the work her family does? She's sure that there isn't a better secret keeper than her.

Peter chuckles, though. "You're the only one who knows it because I trust you with it. However, if you ever do blurt it out, I doubt anyone's gonna believe you."

Well, he isn't wrong. Mae remembers when Gwen suggested Peter being Spider-Man and she just laughed it off thinking it was absurd. Imagine the shock when she realised that her best friend was indeed the superhero who saved her father from drowning.

She was grateful (and also embarrassed that she didn't figure it out earlier), but grateful. She remembers when she was suspicious of him and wondered if he knew Spider-Man, how didn't she see the signs then?

Her thoughts are interrupted when Gwen barges into the room, glee all over her face. "So." She folds her arms, narrowing her eyes at Peter. "Do you still wanna pretend that you two aren't together, or what?"

Peter's face gushes red and Mae struggles to keep her smirk hidden. "Y-yeah, sorry about that." He raises his hands in defeat. "No more... pretending."

He turns to look at Mae, a soft smile on his face and just like that, the butterflies are back.

━━━━━━ 🌻 ━━━━━━

Mae feels nervous as she sits in the dining room of her home, her mother and sister seated along with her- and both unusually quiet.

"Is everything okay?" She asks worriedly, inadvertently picking on her nails. "Did something happen to dad?"

"No! No, sweetie. Your father is okay." Maya quickly replies, reaching out to hold Mae's hand. The teenager breathes a relieved sigh. Mae doesn't want to think of the damage that would happen to her if anything went wrong with her father.

"Well then, what is it? Sarah said it had something to do with SHIELD." Mae asks, pointing to Sarah who's been surprisingly quiet the entire time.

Maya takes a deep breath before holding both of her daughters' hands. "You two... and this family means the world to me. Everything I do- whether it's my work in SHIELD or as an undercover journalist- it's all for this family. There is nothing I wouldn't sacrifice it that means you two are safe."

Mae clutches her mother's hands, panic taking over her. "Mom, what's going on? You're scaring me."

Maya shakes her head, "There's nothing to be scared of, I promise you, Mae." She squeezes her hand. "It's just that after everything went down with Dr Connors, your father's current state and Captain Stacy's death, I knew we couldn't continue as we are now. So... I made a special request to my boss."

Mae furrows her brows. "Wha-what request...?"

Mae knows Maya's boss, well, who doesn't know Nick Fury? That man has entered their house unannounced and undetected more times than she can count. The first time she saw him was during one of his visits when twelve-year-old Mae had just returned from school and saw a scary man sitting on her living room couch. She screamed so loud and even Nick Fury panicked slightly- that man obviously had no experience with wailing children- but thankfully Harry Evans returned home just in time, reprimanded Fury for scaring his daughter like that and since then, Mae has kept her distance from him whenever he came home.

She doesn't know what kind of man Nick Fury was but the fact that her mother had requested him didn't sit right with her.

Maya sighed, squeezing Mae's hand tighter. From the corner of her eyes, Mae sees her sister's jaw clench and she immediately worries about what her mother is about to tell her. She holds her breath in anticipation.

"I just couldn't take it if my family was going to continue to get hurt, I couldn't just watch. I had to do something to make sure nothing would happen to you girls-"

"We can take care of ourselves!" Sarah finally breaks her silence, her eyebrows deeply contorted with anger. "You made this stupid decision without consulting us first! There is literally no need for you to put your own life at risk like this- that's why superheroes exist, Mom, and trust me you're not meant to be one."

Mae feels everything around her slow down and eventually come to a stop. She doesn't think she's breathing. "Wait... what?"

Mae turns to her mother, feeling her eyes water. "What is she talking about, Mom? I don't- I don't understand. You're putting your life at risk...? And what does she mean you're not meant to be a ... superhero?"

The look on Maya's face is resolute, and it scares Mae. "Dr Connors and your father used to be friends. Their line of work is similar, and I know that he and your father work on mutations and DNA enhancement. That's exactly what I'm gonna need, and that's why I asked Nick Fury that Connors should be the one to do it."

Mae's breath halts. "...Do what?"

"Give me superpowers," Says Maya. "So I can keep you safe."

━━━━━━ 🌻 ━━━━━━
END OF ACT 1

━━━━━━ 🌻 ━━━━━━