╰┈➤ 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧: 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵

                𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 - 𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘢𝘺𝘭𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘰𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘯

                                  ❛ little miss perfect, that's me ❜

"𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐔𝐃𝐀𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐈𝐒𝐒 𝐌𝐄."

Poppy huffed, shoveling a forkful of cut fruit into her mouth. Her friends stared at her across the lunch table, a shocked expression painted their face. Anais glared at her. "But who is he?" Poppy blinked at her. "What?"

"He likes you, you might like him, he kissed you, you spend ten minutes talking about how much you hate him. Who even is?" The group sat in silence for a bit watching the Nepali girl taking a sip out of her water bottle. "What? Am I the only one who was curious?" She defended. "You're not." Blaise chimed in crossing his arms. "Who is this guy? Sounds like a real piece of work." "He sounds hot." Margot sighed, resting her head on the palm of her hands. "Did you like it?"

Poppy stared at her friend blankly, "Huh?" "Did you like kissing him?" Leo interrogated taking a bit out of his sandwich. "What do you mean?" Poppy asked, feigning confusion. "You heard him Poppy." Anais spoke up once again leaning on the table as if to get closer to him. "Did you enjoy kissing him?" 

She did actually. Even when he pulled away, she had leaned back in pressing a slow kiss to his lips before getting up and walking out of the room. She handled that quite well. 

"Well maybe a little bit." Poppy muttered picking up Anais's water bottle, taking a slow sip. "Shocking really, I always thought you and MJ would get together." Blaise shrugged. "But now that you two will get together-" "Who said anything about that?" 

Margot frowned, "He makes you feel happier than you've ever been, he confesses his feelings for you, kisses you AND you liked it." Poppy nodded slowly, staring at the brunette across the table. "But you're not going to date him?" Poppy shook her head. "Why not?" Leo asked, quirking an eyebrow. "Because I don't have feelings for him." 

All eyes were on her, looks of disbelief displayed on all their faces

"You're a horrible liar Parker."

𝐏𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐘 𝐑𝐀𝐍 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐒.

It might've been the one thing she was self-aware about. She would deny her feelings, she would deny her flaws, she would pretend she was perfect. But, she was aware that she dreaded confrontation. 

What was she meant to say to him now that he kissed her? Now, that she had walked out on him? Was this the end of their friendship?  She would never find out because she had decide to avoid him.

Instead she focused on what she knew being the perfect person. Paris was seeing a lot more of Spider-Girl and so was the Bordeaux International Academy student body. She had landed the main role in her upcoming ballet recital of Don Quixote, she had successfully advocated for the school to implement fresher lunch options, Paris's crime rate had dropped by 48%. 

It had been two weeks since she had been back at Spider Society, did they really need her? They had thousands of Spider-People. All she did when she was there was hang out with Isla, Love and Hobie and avoid getting hit on by the Peter variant from Earth-743. 

Of course she would have to return eventually,  otherwise Isla and Love would hunt her down but for now she would just stick with what she knew.

Not unwanted feelings, not unnecessary flaws or awkward encounters. Being Poppy Parker.

Being perfect.

𝐅𝐔𝐂𝐊.

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck.

Poppy had gotten careless over the years, she hardly even bothered hiding her identity at home. She'd return to her home at ungodly hours of the night walking straight through the front door, she'd leave her suit on the door of her wardrobe, she'd leave her webs around the house with the promise of cleaning them up later.

Usually her carelessness could be dismissed due to the fact, 17 hours a day, 6 days a week, she was the only occupant of the estate. She had no one to hide her secret identity from at home if she was the only one there.

So everything was going just fine, until Tata Mai had to take a sick day from work.

Poppy had returned home from work, a small box of the remaking cream puffs that no one had bought cradled in her right arm and her school bag in her left.

As she entered what she believed to be an empty house, flicking on the foyer lights. She treaded slowly through the dark hall, absent-mindedly, checking her missed text messages. She entered the dining room, feeling around the wall for the light switch. Flicking it on, she was met with a sight that she wished she could turn off.

Her Tata Mai sat there, clad in her dark red bathrobe and matching pyjama set. Her skin, looked sickly and pale, it's usually bronze glow gone. She hadn't even bothered to style her hair, instead opting for covering the mess with a silk black bonnet. Her arms crossed in front of her chest, a stern expression rested on her face.

"Bonjour Tata," Poppy greeted slowly, she wasn't used to seeing her aunt save for Sundays. "Tu rentres tôt." She placed the pastry box on the counter, resting the strap of the bag on the chair closest to her as she slid into it. "Quelque chose ne va pas." "Something is wrong Poppy." Mai snapped. The older woman reached into her lap pulling out a folded garment.

Poppy felt like throwing up.

Should she have placed her spider suit back in her drawer. Yes. Did she? No.

"Why wouldn't you tell me?" Mai yelled, her voice hoarse from illness. Poppy flinched, "I wanted to I really did but-" "But what Poppy! Your parents entrusted me with your care all those years ago and here you are galavanting around Paris calling yourself Spider-Girl. Those villains out there, they're dangerous. You could have been seriously hurt." The volume of her voice began to rise. Mai stood out of her chair. "Why would you do this to me? Why wouldn't you tell?"

"You're never even here." Poppy cried standing up, "You don't actually care why are you acting like you do?" "I was comfortable working extra hours because I thought you could take care of yourself. I had to work extra hours, do you know how hard it is doing this on my own?" Hot angry tears streamed down her face. "And you had to go out and fuck things up. By playing pretend. This ends now Poppy. I can fix you."

Mai marched out of the kitchen, spidersuit in hand. Poppy followed behind, hot on her trail, tears streaming down her face, pleas pouring out her mouth like a prayer.

The fireplace was on in the sitting room. "Paris doesn't need you. But I do." With that she tossed the spider suit into the fire place.

Well she tried, Poppy quickly webbed the suit towards her, holding it close to her chest. Mai angrily whipped her head to face the girl.

"Poppy. Give me the suit." Mai approached the girl slowly. With every step Mai took, Poppy took a step back. She softly shook her head, her bun finally coming undone. "Poppy. Poppy listen to me. Give. Me. The. Suit." Poppy looked Mai in her eyes, "I can take you to the lab Benoit used to work at, they could fix you, they could removed your powers." Mai hesitantly took a step closer, "You can't handle this, you can't handle any of this. I'm sending you there until you're Poppy Parker again. Until you're my perfect Poppy. Give me the suit we can fix all this."

Poppy rolled up the sleeve of her white cashmere sweater. She began punching a code into her watch. The bright yellow glow of the portal contrasted with the warm ambiance of the sitting room.

Mai looked frightened, "Poppy what is that?" "Mai I gotta go." "Poppy what are you doing?" Poppy had her back to the portal as she slowly began stepping backwards, "Poppy don't do this." Looking between her aunt and the portal, a river of tears streamed down her ebony skin.

"I'm so sorry Mai."

𝐏𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐘 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐆𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐀𝐓 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆

with her problems. Mostly because outside her vigilante duties, Poppy never had any issues. She was perfect. Poppy ran through the halls of Spider Society, dodging people as they walked through the halls, ignoring their greeting. It wasn't on purpose, she couldn't hear them. There was painful ringing in her ears as she attempted to wipe away her tears.

"I'm benefiting Paris, I'm helping everyone, Paris needs me. They need Spider-Girl, they need me." She muttered as she burst into Miguel's office.

Love wasn't there like she had hoped. She fell to her knees, the chill of the metal floor kissed her bare knees, her knee high socks pooled at her ankles. Her perfectly ironed black skirt was now a crumpled mess. "They need me, I'm helping, they need me." She muttered over and over again, clutching her spider suit close to her chest. Miguel turned around, noticing her distraught, fallen from flush again the metal floor.

"Poppy what's wrong?" He asked, as his platform slowly descended, this might've been the only time he regretted his design choice.

When the platform finally reached a decent height he jumped off, slowly approaching the small girl. "Poppy?" He asked wearily, what was he even supposed to do in this situation. Poppy was the one person around here who actually seemed like they had everything together and here she was, crumpled on the floor in tears.

"Are you okay?" He knelt down the her height, his looming figure hovered over her. No response. "Do you need me to call Love?" Poppy's head shot up, "No!" She hoarsely replied. Miguel put his arms up in defense. "Ok.. do you want me to call Hobie?" Poppy almost vomited. She shook her head. Miguel cleared his throat, looking into the distance. "You want me to call Isla?"

 Poppy nodded. "Call Isla." 

LOVE SPEAKS!

Angst because I can't let y'all be too happy.