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chapter five
RESPECT ALL,
TRUST FEW
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LENA WRINGS HER HANDS together from her spot thrown onto one of the chairs in the hotel's lobby. Her body is still expelling nervous energy, so even though she's slouched down on the cushion with her legs sprawled over the armrest, her fingers are a whirlwind of movement. Water Man's attack on the city had sent more of the canal flooding into the lobby. Now, instead of being just deep enough to cause a splash, the water on the lower part of the floor is ankle-deep. Even looking at it makes a fresh wave of nausea rise in her stomach, so she keeps her attention locked onto the Italian newscast on television.

"It's aliens– it has to be," Ned says from where he sits at the table in front of her, his laptop open and displaying one of the many articles already popping up about a water monster in Venice, Havoc and Specter showing up to help fight him, and, most importantly, the newcomer to the scene.

"BuzzFeed says there was a sailor named Morris Bench who was exposed to an experimental underwater generator and got hydro powers," Flash reports with his eyes locked on his phone. Lena rolls her eyes as he walks past, pacing with one hand shoved into his pocket carelessly.

"Yeah, you should definitely believe everything you read on the internet," MJ drawls sarcastically. She sits on the bottom of the staircase against the wall, leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees.

Flash scoffs. "Spider-Man could take him. And it's a good thing that Havoc was there, too, but they're better as a team."

Lena shoots her eyes to Graham, who lifts his hands a fraction in a discreet, What about me? motion. Her body fills with dread at the mention of her alter ego out of Flash's mouth. Whatever he has to say about Havoc, it's probably some fake encounter that makes him look better. The only time he'd come into contact with her is when she had forced him out of his car and he'd nearly pissed himself in shock.

The newscast presents someone's camera footage of Cape Guy fighting off Water Man with his green abilities. Lena can't figure out what they are. He switches from those triangle-type projections, which seem to act as shields or lasers, depending on how he uses them, to force fields, and then to smoke when he flies. She isn't sure whether the smoke is what makes him fly, similarly to how her energy does, or if it's just a cool side-effect.

"The green stuff makes him look like he's flying from fart power," Max declares, which makes Graham sigh heavily.

"I mean, it kind of does," Abe agrees with a snort.

Betty approaches Ned from behind and rests her palm on his shoulder, gently rubbing circles as she questions, "Who is that guy?"

"He's like Iron Man and Thor rolled into one," Brad says with a gleeful smile. He's clearly a fan. However, Lena can't agree with him on that point– she thinks he seems more like a knockoff Necklace Wizard, or, as his official name seems to be, Doctor Strange.

Lena subtly shifts at the mention of Iron Man. The only person who notices is Graham, who gives her a questioning look. She nods to let him know she's okay, releasing a slow breath from her mouth.

"He's alright," Flash says with a shrug. "He's no Spider-Man, Havoc, or Specter."

Graham's lips twitch with pride at the fact that he'd been included this time.

MJ, on the other hand, scoffs a laugh. "What is it with you and them?"

"What?" Flash asks defensively, turning toward her with his eyebrows pinched. "They're just awesome, okay? One time, Havoc even told me that she thought I was handsome."

Lena crosses her arms to hide the fact that her hands are still shaking. She tilts her head to one side and raises a questioning eyebrow. "Really, Flash? What exactly did she say?"

Graham puts a fist over his mouth to stifle his laughter, while Ned's shoulders shake. Lena catches movement out of the corner of her eye. Peter has just walked in, shooting Flash an incredulous expression at his obvious lie while simultaneously trying to bite back a smirk.

"Uh, she–" The boy stammers for a moment, reaching for something to say. "She told me my hair looked nice and... soft."

Lena nods in mock understanding. Her voice drips with sarcasm as she replies, "Ah, okay. For a second, I thought you were going to say she liked your sense of style, because that would obviously have been a lie."

Ned can't suppress the snort that escapes from his mouth.

Flash shoots her a glare and clears his throat. "Anyway, they protect the neighborhood, you know, and they... they inspire me. They inspire me to be a better man." Catching sight of Peter standing with his arms crossed near the staircase, he nods his head with a wink. "Sup, dickwad? Thought you drowned."

The irony in the comment is enough to make Lena chuckle under her breath. If only Flash knew that the kid he teases nearly every day is Spider-Man. He might have a mental breakdown if he ever finds out. Which, honestly, wouldn't surprise Lena because Peter is still God-awful at keeping his identity secret.

"Sounds like his name's Mysterio," Brad says, bringing their attention back to the broadcast.

"Uomo del misterio is Italian for 'man of mystery,'" MJ corrects. "They don't actually know who he is."

Brad gives her an impressed look that makes Lena roll her eyes. God, if Brad is after MJ now, she might throw up in her mouth.

"Well, Mysterio does sound cool, either way," Owen says, earning him a nod of agreement from most of the kids in the room.

Lena senses a presence behind her and notices Peter moving to stand closer, arms crossed and attention still trained onto the television. "Excited for Paris tomorrow?"

She smiles at the mere thought of the place they're going to visit in the morning. "Yeah. I told you about the restaurant I've been wanting to visit, right? Le Procope, the one where–"

"Voltaire used to drink forty cups of coffee," Peter chimes in, making them both finish her sentence in perfect synchronization. When she raises an eyebrow at him, he shrugs and briefly flickers his gaze to hers before moving them back to the television. "I, uh... I just wanted to double-check your answer."

Lena nods even though she's pretty sure his answer had been a cover for something else. "Graham and I were going to check out this bookshop nearby before curfew. Do you wanna come? I already invited Ned, but he said something about hanging out here with Betty."

"Oh, I was actually gonna go upstairs and start getting ready for bed, probably shower because I was kinda covered in canal water," he replies. "I don't think I smell, but I really can't be sure."

"You reek," Flash informs him offhandedly.

Lena shoots him a glare. "Stop eavesdropping and get back to reading your Buzzfeed articles, Flash." After the boy in question rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to his phone, she addresses Peter once again. "You don't smell– I promise. Though I can't say that the canal water was very clean, so it'd probably be a good idea to shower."

Peter gives her a small grin of thanks for sticking up for him so quickly.

When she and Graham head out to the bookstore that's only a few blocks away from the hotel, it's still a sunny mid-afternoon. Lena immediately notices that the boat traffic in the canals has significantly decreased since today's attack. She forces herself to keep her eyes open during the ride instead of squeezing them shut like her body so desperately wants her to. That's why she notices that the bridge that Water Man had smashed to pieces is directly in their way of reaching the bookstore.

Their gondola driver stops the boat in its tracks. Graham and Lena share a heavy glance, then ultimately come to the same conclusion.

"Just take us back, please," Lena says with a sigh of disappointment. She'd wanted to buy a book from Venice just so she could say that she had, even if she can't understand Italian. It would have been an awesome addition to her already extensive book collection.

"That sucks," Graham says, lips pulled into a frown as their small boat turns around.

They pay the driver when they reach the hotel again, walking into the lobby to find it mostly empty except for a group of kids that Lena doesn't know very well because they hadn't been dusted in the snap. Max and Owen are laughing with them. It seems like they're playing the card game Apples to Apples on one of the tiny tables, too many chairs shoved around it and the players sitting elbow-to-elbow.

Graham nudges Lena in the back with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Max, Owen, don't stay up past your bedtime!"

As if they share one mind, the identical twins reach their hands behind their backs and flip him off in synch.

Lena snickers at their sibling banter when both her and Graham's phones buzz with a notification. She fishes her phone out of her pocket to see a text from Peter in their three musketeers group chat.

PETER PARKOUR: You guys are back already, right? Come to room 214– I gotta show you something.

"Something about this seem weird to you?" Graham asks, tilting his phone outward in his grip. Lena notices with a snort that his contact name for Peter is peter piper.

"It's Peter– he's always doing something weird," she replies with a shrug. Tapping on the message, she sends back a quick response.

LEE: be right up

Graham's screen lights up with the text. Her contact name reads lena lena bo bena, which makes her shake her head before grabbing the banister and climbing the creaky stairs.

The door to Peter and Ned's room is wide open. Lena catches sight of Peter immediately– he's standing in a t-shirt and plaid pajama pants, already freshly showered and with a blue toothbrush in clenched in his hand. Something about the expression on his face makes her nerves jump to high alert. Then she catches sight of Ned's crumpled form on the bed pushed against the left wall, and she checks that the hallway is empty before forming a ball of energy in her palm and hurrying in. Graham disappears into the shadows behind her.

"Lena, uh, there's no need–" Peter stammers as she marches in with her face twisted in determination, his eyes wide as he regards the energy ready to be launched from her hand. Her gaze sweeps across the room until she finds the man sitting in the corner and the energy fizzles out.

It's Nick Fury.

Her jaw drops for a second before she has the sense to close it, the unamused expression on his face giving her the impression that she's in trouble. The dread pooling in her gut is identical to the feeling she gets when she's reprimanded by a teacher at school. His mouth is pulled into a frown, his single eye devoid of emotion as it regards her. There are claw marks that mar his dark skin just above the eyepatch that covers his left eye– the symbol of an injury from long ago. In one hand is a gun. Lena's eyes shift to where Ned is passed out on the mattress beside her. Stuck in his neck is a single tranquilizer dart. She looks back at Fury with widened eyes.

This is the man that had taken her in as an infant. This is the man who had ordered for her to be injected with a stabilizing agent that was powerful enough to hide her abilities for four years, allowing her to be adopted. This is the man who has been watching her for her entire life without her knowledge– the S.H.I.E.L.D agents posing as her neighbors had made sure of that.

"Miss Santos," Nick Fury greets her blankly.

Graham bursts from the shadows near the sink, breathless and summing up Lena's thoughts in a single sentence. "Holy shit."

Fury doesn't flinch at his abrupt arrival. "Mr. Seager. Good to see you're all here– I thought it would be best for you all to be present when I talk so I don't have to repeat myself three separate times. Here's what you need to know." He slaps a device on the table in front of his seat that projects an orange hologram of the Earth into the air. "A week ago, a village in Mexico was wiped out by a cyclone. Witnesses say that cyclone had a face."

Just as video footage of the cyclone replaces the image of the Earth, Ned's snores interrupt the debriefing, effectively cutting off the tense atmosphere. All four of them glance at him.

"Uh, at least he's still out?" Graham says with a shrug.

Fury continues as if nothing had happened. "Three days later, a similar event in Morocco. A village was–"

This time, they're interrupted by Mr. Harrington knocking on the open door, stepping over the threshold of the room but choosing to merely lean against the doorframe. Graham quickly plops onto Peter's bed in order to make their situation appear more natural. Fury carefully aims the tranquilizer gun at their teacher.

"Just making the rounds," Mr. Harrington explains, brightening when he sees the three of them all together. "Oh, you're all here! Great– that means less work for me in the long run. Do any of you need any emotional counseling after today's traumatic events?"

"No, we'll be okay – we're, uh, we're fine, thank you," Peter spews out in a high-pitched voice. Lena quickly nods in agreement.

"Great, 'cause I'm – I'm not qualified to actually" – Ned snores again, drawing their teacher's attention to the sleeping boy and making him drop his voice to a whisper – "oh, he's passed out. I'm not really qualified to do it anyways, so, goodnight."

He shuts the door, making the three teenagers turn right back to the intimidating man still trying to get through his explanation.

"That was our teacher," Peter says as a weak explanation. "Sorry about that. You were saying?"

Gun still in hand, Fury continues, "A village was destroyed by what may very well be another world-threatening–"

Another knock at the door has Lena shifting with nervous energy. Betty's quiet voice drifts through the wood. "Babe, are you still awake? You're not answering any of my texts."

"He's asleep, Betty!" Peter calls back.

"Oh. Alrighty."

"Mmm-hmm, yeah."

"Okay. Bye."

Fury tries again. "That's why it's imperative–"

A third set of knocks makes Graham groan in annoyance as Mr. Dell says, "Hey, boys, so that canal water today was filled with dangerous bacteria–"

"Another person touches that door, you three and I will be attending another funeral," Fury says lowly, and there isn't a doubt in Lena's mind that he's being serious. He slams a palm on the holographic device to turn it off. "Suit up."

Ten minutes later, they're in a small motorboat and heading to an undisclosed location. Peter is in his full Spider-Man suit, mask pulled over his face, Lena has her wig and nanotech, and Graham has swarmed himself in enough shadows that his cheap costume from the internet is barely visible. The sky is painted a beautiful azure blue that's so clear it's hard to believe that such a catastrophe had struck only a couple hours ago. Lena focuses on it instead of the ripples their boat makes as it cuts through the calm waters of the canal system.

Graham stares lasers in the back of Fury's bald head. At first, Lena can't figure out what he's doing, but then the man casually says, "If you're trying to get into my head, you'll find that it's tougher to breach than most others you've tried."

Busted, Graham hangs his head in shame. Lena smacks him on the arm. She can't believe that he'd tried to get into Nick Fury's mind and see what his worst fears and memories are. How could he have thought that would work?

"Stark left these for you," Fury says, handing Peter a nondescript glasses case.

"Really?" Peter asks as he hesitantly accepts them. Lena peers over his shoulder to see what it's inside. When he opens the brown case, she recognizes a familiar pair of glasses with purple lenses that Tony had worn a few times when they'd been working in the lab together. She recalls asking him if he'd owned a pair with lenses of every color of the rainbow. He'd said something along the lines of, Not green– it makes me look sick.

"'Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,'" Fury quotes with a glance at the boy. "Stark said you wouldn't get that because it's not a Star Wars reference."

"It's from Shakespeare's play Henry IV," Lena says way too quickly to be considered natural. When Fury raises an eyebrow at her adamance, she adds, "I, uh, love Shakespeare."

The man turns to face toward again and holds up an envelope. "This was in his will. I don't know what it means, but I'm assuming you do."

Lena stares at the paper dumbly before taking it with shaking hands. She carefully opens it, afraid to even rip the paper because it's so precious to her. There's nothing written on the front, but inside is a piece of paper with a small section of text printed on it.

I, Anthony Edward Stark, give Lena Marie Santos the laboratory located at [REDACTED], along with everything inside of it, as well as unrestricted access to the files pertaining to the information recorded and evaluated at said location. I also give her authorization to purchase any extra equipment she deems necessary to complete the experiments conducted there. If she so wishes to take advantage of these things, she will only need to go to the location and tell F.R.I.D.A.Y the correct answer to this question: "Permission to high five?"

Lena blinks away the tears that have gathered in her eyes. Permission granted.

The lab is hers. She can't believe it– the entire building and all of its equipment are now in her possession so that she can keep working on stabilizing her energy. She'll need to tell Shuri as soon as she gets back to the hotel. This will undoubtedly speed up the process of their tests since Lena can continue testing on herself instead of Shuri needing to work with very small amounts of her energy at a time. And the fact that he'd apparently left her an unknown amount of funds– wow. He truly had thought of everything.

Graham isn't bothered by the fact that Fury doesn't have anything to give him. He hadn't really met Tony, so he hadn't expected to receive a gift from the fallen Avenger. Instead, he gives Lena a supportive thumbs-up when he notices the tears in her eyes. He doesn't ask what the piece of paper says.

The boat leads them to a stone building with no apparent function. Fury climbs out after docking it, leaving the three teenagers no choice but to hurry after him and his swishing black coat that reaches his ankles. Lena is struck with deja vu when her gaze latches onto the near-mesmerizing movement of the coat. She'd seen the same thing at Tony's funeral, but it had disappeared behind the house before she could determine its source. It had been Fury. And he'd been looking at her.

Lena wonders if he's remembering the day she'd shown up at S.H.I.E.L.D. at this very moment. She's curious to know what he thinks of her and the powers he'd tried his best to subdue. When he looks at her, does he see the same unstable child he'd grown familiar with? Or does he see a stronger, more capable girl almost at young adulthood?

Her thoughts are cut off when Fury leads them to the basement. Here, it's so dark that only a few sparse lights prevent it from being completely pitch-black. Graham is buried beneath so many shadows that he's barely visible. He stays that way until they round a corner and Fury tells them, "You can lose the masks and shadows– everyone here has seen you without them. You'd only be feigning anonymity and breathing through spandex for no good reason."

He directs the last comment at Peter's full-face mask and walks ahead of them into a room. Graham solidifies his form and yanks off the black plastic that goes around his eyes, shoving it into a pocket. Lena presses the bridge of her nose to make her mask dissolve and pulls off her wig so her hair spills out from the built-in hairnet. Peter tugs his own cover off of his face, sending his curls wild.

"Come on," Fury beckons when they don't move quickly enough for his liking.

The trio glances at each other to see who will go first. Lena sighs at the two boys, grumbling, "Oh, for Christ's sake," before following after Fury. Peter and Graham trail behind her.

What seemed to be an empty, archaic building is actually home to a high-tech base that reminds her of Tony's laboratory in New York City– bland on the outside but thrilling within. Stone pillars and walls lined with mildew are home to people typing away at computers or reading data from holograms. Despite this, the long chamber is still dimly-lit by a single row of bulbs in the center, casting numerous shadows everywhere. Graham should feel right at home.

"There we have Maria Hill," Fury says, motioning to a tall woman who's standing at a table and typing on a small laptop. Her short hair is pulled back in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She gives them a halfhearted, closed-lipped grin of acknowledgment before going back to her typing. "That is Dimitri."

A bearded man sitting with a very large rifle in his hands glares at them as they walk past, loading the gun without breaking eye contact. Lena finds herself picking up her pace to move away faster.

"And this is Mr. Beck."

An all-too-familiar man with a maroon cape has his back to them, though he turns at the sound of his name, causing the glowing disks on the fabric to swish at his movement. The Cape Guy from today's earlier attack is standing right in front of them. Now, without the fishbowl-like ball on his head, she can see that he's actually quite young– probably in his early to mid-thirties. His impeccable hair appears dark in the poor lighting, neatly-trimmed beard covering the bottom half of his face.

"Mysterio?" Peter questions as he steps up beside Lena.

The man's eyebrows crease in confusion. "What?"

"Doesn't matter," Peter hastily explains, "it's just what our friends have been calling you."

"Well, you can call me Quentin."

He walks toward Lena with his hand outstretched. She clasps it in a firm handshake, remembering what Pa had taught her about how much force to apply and how to not squeeze too hard, giving him a small smile. He returns it before moving on to Peter and Graham, who flank her on either side.

"You handled yourselves well out there," he praises. "I saw what you did with the tower. We could have used people like you on my world."

He turns back around to face the circular table in front of them as Peter gives an awestruck, "Thanks."

Graham asks, much less smoothly, "Wait, what?"

"Mr. Beck is from Earth, just not yours," Fury explains as he crosses the room to stand near Maria.

"There are multiple realities," Beck adds. "This is Earth, dimension 616. I'm from Earth-833."

Peter opens his mouth in excitement and then promptly closes it, rushing toward Beck with unrestrained enthusiasm. "I'm sorry, are you saying there's a multiverse? Because I thought that was just theoretical– I mean, it completely changes how we understand the initial singularity. We're talking about an internal inflation system! And how does that even work with all the quantum... it's insane!"

Upon noticing that Fury and Maria are staring at him as if he's grown three more heads, Peter cuts himself off with an embarrassed clearing of his throat. "Sorry, it's just really cool."

Lena, on the other hand, beams at him. She's been wondering all the same things. In the past thirty seconds, her mind has conjured up a million questions about the multiple realities that Beck has just confirmed are in existence. Does that mean that there is another Quentin Beck on this planet? Is there another, powerless version of her out there somewhere? Is there an Earth where Flash Thompson isn't a jerk?

"Never apologize for being the smartest one in the room," Beck tells him. Peter smiles at that, regaining confidence quickly.

Maria huffs through her nose as Lena and Graham join Peter at the round table across from Beck. "Anyway..."

She presses a few buttons on her laptop. The table must actually hold projectors for holograms, because a stunningly crisp image of a swirling black hole appears above the surface. Reds and yellows conflate together to form a beautiful mix of orange that casts a warm light on all of their faces.

"They were born in stable orbits," Beck begins as the projection of the black hole becomes framed with colorful figures– one of which looks like the water monster from earlier. "Within black holes, creatures formed from the primary elements– air, water, fire, earth. The science division had a technical name. We just called them Elementals."

"Versions of them exist across our mythologies," Maria explains, changing the images of the so-called Elementals to ones of Greek and Roman descent. They rotate slowly in a circle so Lena can observe each one of them up close.

"Turns out that the myths are real," Beck sighs.

"Like Thor!" Peter chimes in. "Thor was a myth and now I study him in my physics class."

Graham adds, "And Loki in history– the Battle of New York in 2012."

"These myths are threats," Fury says, walking from Maria's side to a series of desktop computer screens, where he plops into a rolling chair.

"They first materialized on my Earth many years ago," Beck explains, the holograms forming into a semi-transparent image of an Earth that looks pretty much identical to theirs. "We mobilized and fought them, but with each battle, they grew and got stronger. I was part of the last battalion left trying to stop them. All we did was delay the inevitable."

As he speaks, small points on the rotating globe indicate where the Elementals had attacked. They seem to span across every continent, and while some of the threats seem to have disappeared, others merely spread. A vibrant orange color spills across the Earth like a plague. It consumes everything in sight until all that's left is an apparent wasteland that was once a beautiful planet.

"Well, the Elementals are here now, attacking the same coordinates," Maria informs them. "Our satellites confirm it."

"So thank Mr. Beck for destroying the other three," Fury adds from his spot in the chair near the computer monitors. "There's only one left: fire."

Beck's voice is resigned, sounding despondent and very much unlike how he'd been when they'd first arrived. "The strongest of them all. The one that destroyed my Earth." Lena glances down when movement catches her eye. At first, she thinks it may be a nervous tick, but then she notices that he's toying with a golden wedding band on his finger and feels her heart sink. "It's the one that took my family."

Graham, Peter, and Lena all speak at once to express their condolences, their voices mixing together in a quiet manner. "I'm sorry."

"And it would be in Prague in approximately forty-eight hours," Maria says matter-of-factly.

"We have one mission: kill it," Fury says in a voice filled with determination. "And you're coming with us."

"Uh, Prague?" Lena asks, furrowing her brows. She turns to look at her friends and discovers Peter making a similar face.

"Mr. Fury, this all seems like big-time, you know, huge, superhero kind of stuff," he says, clearly trying to say no in the nicest way possible. "And... I mean – I'm just a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, sir."

"Bitch please, you've been to space," Fury scoffs. He points a finger at Lena. "And you've been to Wakanda."

Graham shrugs. "I'm a friendly neighborhood Specter. The farthest I've gone is Virginia."

Fury shoots him a withering side-eye that shuts him up immediately.

"Space was an accident, sir," Peter explains, speaking at a rapid-fire pace that makes it almost difficult to distinguish one word from another. "Come on. There's gotta be someone else you can use. What about Thor?"

Fury doesn't blink. "Off-world."

"Okay, um... Doctor Strange?"

It's Maria who replies, "Unavailable."

"Captain Marvel?"

"Don't invoke her name." Fury narrows his eye.

"Scott Lang?" Lena suggests weakly.

His forehead creases. "Who?"

Peter rubs a hand along his face. "Sir, we really wanna help – we do – but if my aunt and their parents find out we left our class trip, they're gonna kill us. And if I'm seen like this in Europe after the Washington Monument, my whole class will figure out who I am, and then the whole world will figure out who I am, and then I'm done."

"And if the three of us are coincidentally gone at the exact same time that Havoc, Specter, and Spider-Man pop up around the world, our identities are shot, too," Lena adds.

Graham raises a sheepish hand. "I promised my mom I'd look after my little brothers."

Fury stares at them for a moment before saying, "Okay. I understand."

Peter shares a confused glance with Graham. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Why don't you get back before your teachers miss you and become suspicious?" He gives them a strangely benign, closed-lipped grin. "Dimitri, take them back to the hotel, please. Have fun babysitting, Mr. Seager."

Graham salutes him, then immediately smacks himself in the face.

"Thank you, Mr. Fury," Peter says earnestly as he begins to turn around, "and, uh, good luck."

It's a pretty awkward walk back to the door. They say goodbye to Beck, Lena managing to choke out a, "Nice to meet you," amid the stifling atmosphere. It seems way too simple that they're walking out just like that. Lena half expects Dimitri to pull his rifle on them and demand that they stay to help. But he doesn't, and he leads them back up to the motorboat in complete silence.

"That was easy," Graham whispers in her ear as they walk back up the stone spiral staircase. Lena nods in agreement. It was almost too easy, but she doesn't allow herself to think about that as they climb into the small boat and start heading back toward the hotel.

-♕-

Thirty minutes after they get back, Lena changes out of her Havoc suit and sneaks off to spend some time looking at Venice from the vantage point of a rooftop. She finds one fairly easily by ducking into a deserted alley and pulling her hood over her head before propelling herself upward with a jet of energy.

Lena likes admiring the city from above. It's so much easier to see the sunlight glint off of each canal and piece of architecture. Additionally, it allows her to monitor the reconstruction and cleanup that has to be done after the Elemental's attack. She can see the busy hands of construction crews patching up brick walls and using cranes to pick up large chunks of concrete and stone. It gives her half a mind to go and help them— her energy could speed up the process tremendously, but she's already risked enough by showing herself here. Besides, she can't stay out past curfew. Mr. Harrington would have seven heart attacks and possibly call her parents.

She puffs out a sigh as the breeze rifles her bangs. She'd changed into a pair of jeans with a yellow sweatshirt before coming up here, and even though the setting sun brings some warmth, it's cooler up here than it is on the streets. She finds herself tucking her hands inside of her sleeves more often than not.

Lena jumps upon hearing footsteps behind her. She whirls around to see Peter walking toward her, probably having climbed up the building like the spider he is. The sight of him relaxes her alarmed nerves; she exhales in relief as he plops down beside her and dangles his legs over the ledge the same way she is.

"Penny for your thoughts?" he asks, squinting as the quickly-setting sun spills its orange light directly into their eyes. Lena turns away from it to see that it has spread over him, turning the tips of his hair amber and skin golden. The rays reveal hints of honey in his brown eyes that she's never noticed before.

"I'm so conflicted," she admits with a frown. "I want to help with the Elementals, I want to repay Nick Fury for giving me a second chance at life when I was too young to understand it, and I want to go see Prague, but I can't. This vacation is the only one I'll have for a while. I just brought my suit because I didn't think I'd actually have to use it, you know?" She pauses, her heart sinking. "Captain Rogers told me to take a break. I want to, but the truth is, I don't think I know how."

Peter nods in understanding. "Yeah. That makes sense. I didn't even want to bring my suit— I just wanted a nice, normal vacation, but..."

"We're not normal," Lena finishes sadly. "And maybe we'll never be normal."

"I don't believe that," he says firmly. Lena raises her eyebrows in question, prompting him to continue. "I think there has to be an end to all of this somewhere along the line. Somehow, people like us could live their lives in peace without having to fight constantly."

Lena isn't so sure. She's only seen death for their kind, whether it comes from sacrifice, a choice, or battle, she's witnessed too much for her to agree with him right away. But they're a new generation of heroes. Peter, Graham, Ned, Shuri, Harley, and her are all part of a different world that can bring on an abundance of changes if they believe it to be possible.

"Maybe," she decides to say. "It sounds nice. I hope you're right."

They lapse into a comfortable silence. Lena's fingers tap on the concrete between them, and when her skin brushes his, a zap of excitement dances from her fingertips down to her toes as her every nerve narrows to that single, brief touch. God. This really is becoming a problem.

But Peter doesn't pull his hand away. Lena allows their hands to stay like that, just out of reach of each other but close enough to grab if either of them decides to be any less stubborn. Her heart begins to pound in her chest, warming her face as she looks back out at the sunset streaming over Venice.

It's beautiful. She wishes she had her Polaroid with her to document this moment, even though no photograph could ever do this view justice. Blue, pink, orange, and purple are at war for dominance over the sky, a chaotic mess that knocks the air from her lungs. Clouds puncture the battle and look like puffs of cotton candy in the mix. She wishes this moment could last forever, but knows that in a matter of minutes, the city will be plunged into twilight and they'll have to head back to the hotel for a head count before curfew.

"It's pretty, isn't it?" Lena asks, trailing her eyes along the empty rooftops of the other buildings surrounding them.

"Yeah," Peter answers, sounding distracted. She quickly turns her head to catch him looking at her instead of the sunset. It makes him blush cherry red, starting from his face and spreading down to his neck and ears until it finally disappears beneath his gray hoodie.

She grins, raising an eyebrow as her heart skips a dangerous beat. "What?"

"N—Nothing," he stammers in a high-pitched voice. Despite his insistence, he can't seem to look away, holding her gaze even though his face is still pink with a blush that matches the sky. It makes her heart soar.

She feels her fingers twitch with that familiar urge to grab him and pull him close. It's been harder and harder to resist lately— since that night he'd delivered her new suit and she'd first considered kissing him, the desire has only become stronger. And now, with this lighting making him look angelic and with the knowledge of how much she cares about him, the urge barrels into her like an oncoming train.

Today had proved that. They've stopped petty crimes back in Queens since the blip, but today she'd actually feared for his life when they'd fought the Elemental. She knows that doing this job requires a profound amount of trust that he will do the right thing in order to survive and stop the threat. However, she's certain that worrying is just a part of the package deal. And when he'd rambled about the revelation of a multiverse, her heart had done all kinds of gymnastics in her chest.

Lena finds herself blurting the question out before she can stop herself. "Can I kiss you?"

Peter's eyes grow to the size of saucers. He goes entirely still, not even the hairs on his head daring to move along with the slight breeze. "What?"

"Never mind." Now it's Lena's turn to blush, but out of humiliation this time. What the hell had she been thinking? "That was really weird of me to ask. I'm sorry— it won't happen again. Actually, can we just pretend that it never happened? That would be—"

His words come out like vomit. "Noit'sokayyoucantotallykissme."

Her heart stops beating and then resumes in a thunderous roar, threatening to burst with how shocked she is. She hides it by smoothly replying with, "Really? Cool."

Except all they do is continue to stare at each other. It's like their gazes are locked, unable to look away if they tried, securing them to this moment. The air is taut with the kind of tension that only uncertainty can bring. She hesitates a second longer, unsure if she can actually bring herself to do it this time, then thinks, Fuck it, and kisses him.

She's read plenty of novels and classics where the heroine shares her first kiss with the main love interest— a dashing, charming man who knows exactly what to do. This is nothing like the books. It's just two teenagers who are unsure of the moment, unsure of each other, and of the feelings they possess that seem bigger than them. They're barely even touching each other. All of Lena's book knowledge tells her she should be pulling him closer, sliding her hands onto his chest, or circling around his neck, but none of that feels right. This is just a test. A careful and innocent exchange that has her heart soaring at how perfectly not-perfect it is.

Lena is the first to pull away, but only a few inches. Her heart is still pounding so hard she wonders if Peter can hear it, flushing her entire body with a peaceful warmth.

She cracks her eyes open to see Peter blushing as well. All he works out is, "That was... cool."

Lena laughs endearingly at his response. "Yeah." She pauses, the confession dancing on the tip of her tongue until she finally forces it out. "Peter, I like you a lot."

His eyes snap open. He seems astonished by that somehow, as if her asking to kiss him was just something that friends do. "M—Me? You like me?" She nods with her lips anxiously pressed together. His brain seems to short circuit for a moment, mouth agape before he continues with, "Well, that's good because... I like you, too. A lot. like, a lot. I like you a lot."

Lena's smile grows even larger — she hadn't even thought that was possible — as he trips over his words and repeats them like a broken record. She feels so light and happy that she's certain that if she jumped off of this building, she'd defy gravity and just float up into space. God, she's so fond of his awkward adorableness.

"Well, if we're both in agreement about this mutual attraction thing, then, uh... wanna just... see where it goes?" she suggests with a shrug. The words boyfriend and girlfriend don't seem fitting just yet. After all, they're just kids, and they definitely aren't ones to move as quickly as Betty and Ned had. Going with the flow seems more their style.

Peter responds in a really high-pitched voice that displays his nerves, "Yeah, sure." He clears his throat and swallows, wetting his lips. "Uh, can I kiss you now?"

Lena's heart starts hammering so hard she's worried it actually will damage her rib cage, lips lifting into yet another grin immediately. By now it feels like her cheeks might fall off, but she doesn't care. "Of course."

"Okay."

Peter leans in too quickly and their noses bump together, causing them both to let out nervous laughter before he tries again. The second one is much better. It's slow yet innocent, testing the waters of this new thing they have as if both of them are afraid of breaking it. Her hand comes up and grazes the nape of his neck while his brushes against her cheek. That's as physical as it gets, though, and Lena doesn't mind at all. It's gentle and soft and everything she'd wanted it to be. She wouldn't trade a single part of it for the world.

It isn't a movie-perfect kiss, but it's just enough for her.

__________

a/n:

*cries in single*

peter: *rambling about a multiverse*
lena:

(i have decided to include memes in every author's note that i possibly can and none of you can stop me.)

this was always the plan i had for their first kiss! for some reason, i always imagined it happening on a rooftop with the sunset in the background. i think it's such a freaking cute thing to picture in my mind and i always get so giddy when i re-read that scene! i also wanted to add it in here (i purposely changed up the time frame– in the movie, it was nighttime when they met beck) because there isn't really another convenient time in the movie for it to happen. from here, it's pretty much a rollercoaster. i also didn't want it to merely replace the spideychelle kiss.

please tell me your thoughts!!

also, hailee steinfeld just did a WIRED autocomplete interview and said she's 5'6 even though google said she's 5'8, so lena and peter actually aren't the same height, and now my entire life is a lie.

–kristyn