...Ladies and gentlemen, after a way too long time of absence, please welcome back... LADY SECRECY!

*Just kidding*Anyway, hey guys! It has been quite a while, hasn't it? I dearly apologize for letting you wait SO long, but no matter what I do, my life refuses to accept the fact that I need time for writing as much as I need to breath. Unfortunately, I have two weeks filled with exams coming up, meaning I won't be able to continue this story in that time. But on the bright side, I will have two weeks of holidays afterwards and that hopefully means MORE UPDATES!
Until then, I managed to get this little chapter done. It's not as much as you deserve after waiting that long, but it's a start, right? Right!? ;)

Without wasting more time, I hope that you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it!

- Lady Secrecy

The morning sun dawned brightly through the window and illuminated the room in a rosy tone. A beam of light struck Ava in the face and caused her to stir a little, her eyes slightly fluttering open, before closing back in fatigue, still weighted down with weariness. She buried her face deeper in her pillow and tried to return to sleep, but she couldn't help but notice the strange warmth that seemed to emanate from it.

If she hadn't still been dazed, she probably would have realized that her bed did not quite feel the way it usually did and that the strange warmth somehow seemed to have enveloped her entire body, but she merely brushed it off as her mind playing tricks on her and snuggled back up in her blanket.

But just as the sleep seemed to be slowly engulfing her once again, her sensitive ears suddenly perceived a scarcely audible sound that was slowly but steadily coming closer. Ava, being a naturally attentive and light sleeper, couldn't help but subconsciously start to analyze it, so without opening her eyes, she pricked her ears to focus on the noise. She could hear muffled thuds that appeared to be approaching her and her brain automatically worked to match the information with a fitting source.

These were definitely steps. She could almost feel the damped oscillations that softly spread out with every tamping step the person took. Having found the source of the noise, she leaned back into the comfortable sheets of the bed, her thoughts drifting off to the previous night. She remembered the thunderstorm that had been bothering her just a few hours ago which lead to wondering why she could not recall when and how she fell asleep. All of sudden, remembrance hit her like a fork of lightning.

A string of thoughts started to form in her mind. This room was most likely not her own room and the bed she was laying in was not her own bed either. And if she was correct - which she really hoped that she was not -, she would not be alone in this bed. And then, there were these footsteps that still seemed to be approaching them.
Crap.

In a flash, Ava dared to open her eyes and the first thing she saw was Peter's pale, bare chest right next to her face. She resisted the urge to jump out of the bed as she noticed that he had slung an arm around her form which held her close to his body, making her blush in embarrassment of how closely they were pressed together. She looked up at his face and was met with a look of sheer calmness and the slight hint of a smile, making him seem almost childishly young.

It didn't seem like he was going to wake up any time soon, so she carefully grabbed his arm while also listening for the person that was now clearly approaching their - correction, Peter's - room and gently tried to pull it off her without waking him - if he woke up, it would only cost her more time until he was wide awake and able to comprehend the awkward situation they were in at the moment.

Just as she was about to stand up and leave the bed, Peter slightly stirred and only tightened his grip on her, pulling her even closer.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me!" Ava exasperatedly hissed to herself. "Oh damn it!"

With that, she simply pushed his arm off her, knowing that he would not wake up anyway, and stood up, frantically searching for a hiding place in his room. She looked around and the first thing that caught her eye was the closet standing against the wall. Without giving much more thought to it, she leapt over to the piece of furniture, opened it up and jumped into it, positioning herself in such a way that she could easily observe the room through the small crack of the closet's doors.

Just as she did so, the door of his room opened to reveal a groggy-looking Sam, still in his PJs and busy rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Being as quiet as she could, she sank deeper into the messy pile of clothes in the overstuffed closet, resisting the urge to squeak as one of Peter's boxes shorts landed straight in her face. Throwing it away in disgust, she watched as Sam stepped closer to the boy's bed and tiredly mutter his name to wake him up.

In the deep recesses of Peter's mind...

"Hey Pete!" Ava joyfully greeted him she peeked through the door of his room, causing him to raise his head to look at the girl.
The second his eyes met hers, a broad smile stretched his lips as he sit up in his bed and tossed his Iron Man comic book aside to focus on her. "How are you doing, kitten?"

The Latina let out a playfully angry sigh and rolled her eyes at his nickname for her. "Didn't I tell you to stop calling me that?"

"Sure. And didn't I tell you that I won't stop calling you that, kitten?" He teased her, enjoying the abashed expression on her face.
After regaining her posture, she just shook her head and approached his position, sitting down next to him. Peter eyed her for a maybe not so short moment, focusing his gaze on her PJs consisting of only a pair of shorts and a tank top, before quickly directing his gaze somewhere else - which happened to be her eyes and, of course, she looked up at him at the same moment, inevitably locking her eyes with his. Not better.

"Um, do you, er, want something particular or-..." He tried to break the awkward silence that had settled down on them, finding himself unable look away from her eyes. "I mean, it's not like I don't want you here! Not at all!"

Having finally managed to break their eye contact and look down, she thought for the right way to formulate her words. "You know, there is actually something that I need to talk about with you. You see, um, I-..."

She turned her head to face him and suddenly, their faces were less than an inch apart from each other, making both of them hold their breath for what seemed like an eternity.

Peter's heart skipped a beat before pounding twice as fast as he slowly exhaled, trying to steady his uneven breathing. Swallowing the lump in his throat, he opened his mouth to say something - anything - but no words came out of it, causing his already red face to turn even darker. "I- You,um, you want to talk?" he tried once again, this time at least being able to stutter a few words. As he said that, his breath softly breezed past Ava's face, noticing how it made her shudder slightly.

"You see, I wanted to tell you that I-..." she began to explain, but stopped when she became aware that he was slowly inching a little bit closer to her face, causing her to unconsciously do the same.

Why did I initiate this!? It's not like I want to kiss her - or is it? Can't stop it now anyway, but what if it's so bad that she hates me? Urgh, she's so gonna make Spidey kebab out of me...

In spite of his doubts, he could not help but keep closing the distance between them and just as he started to sense how her plump lips softly brushed over his, he suddenly felt a strange feeling in his shoulder, as though someone was touching and shaking it. He decided to simply ignore it when he heard a familiar voice shouting his name from all directions, causing his surroundings to shatter and collapse and making him fall down towards a giant, dark nothing.

"Peter! Peter! Peter!"

"Peter? Peter! PETER!"

"AAAAAAHHHH!"

The teen cried out in shock as he abruptly awoke from his dream, falling out of his bed and crashing onto the hard ground of his room. Groaning groggily, he rolled around to lie on his back, coming face to face with Sam who didn't even try to hide the fact that he was laughing himself to tears.

"Holy cow, what were you dreaming about? That was hilarious! Why didn't I film this?" he yelped in between his roaring fits of laughter. Peter darted him an angry look, making Sam try to suppress it slightly - key word being try - and offer him a hand to help him up.

"Dude, what are you doing in my room? And why the hell did you wake me that early on a Saturday!?" Peter snarled at him after sneaking a glance at his alarm clock told him that it was not even 7 AM.

"Don't be so such a baby, Pete!" Sam snapped back, rolling his eyes at his leader's moody behavior, "It's not my fault that Fury called on us to be at the Tricarrier for an extracurricular training session in half an hour."

"Extracurricular training? Why should there be any need for that? And why didn't he call me? The team leader?" he exclaimed irritated, rubbing the arm he landed on when he fell out of the bed.

"I dunno," Sam plainly answered the bunch of questions after letting out a long yawn, "And he did call you. You were too busy with sleeping to answer your communicator and strangely enough, Ava didn't answer hers either."

Peter glanced over his to have a look at his communicator lying on the floor next to his bed - most likely shut off to let him sleep for a humanly normal amount of time for at least one damn day in the week.
Sheepishly clearing his throat, he turned back to his teammate's amusedly reproachful glare. "Come on, bucket head. Don't pretend like you wouldn't like to sleep long enough for once," Peter shot back in an attempt to talk himself out of it.

"Actually, you're even right this time. We'd all be up for a bit more sleep," Sam agreed, seeming to let the matter rest, "Except Tiger, that is. I'm surprised that she hasn't thrown a book in my face to wake me up herself!"

Hold on for a second! If Ava is not in her bed... Did all that stuff with her coming into my room in the middle of the night actually happen or was that just a strange dream as well? And why would I even dream something like that in the first place!? I mean, it's not as if I like her, right? Right!? Puh, is it getting hotter in here?

"Maybe she's just tired of keeping after us?" Peter merely suggested, deciding to toss his confused thoughts aside to ponder on them later.

"Who can say what goes on in her mind anyway?" Sam replied with shrug as he turned to leave, "I'm gonna hit the shower." With that, he stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him, leaving Peter attempting to recall what had happened the night before. He knew for a fact that his dream was nothing but a dream. But he was also pretty sure that Ava did enter his room for some reason.
What for though?

Casting a glance out the window, he mustered the still wet streets and all the little branches, leaves and even some garbage that had been blown around by the wind. That had really been one heavy thunderstorm.

...Thunderstorm.

Peter stopped in his tracks as a look of realization washed over his face.

Wait! A thunderstorm! That was why Ava came into my room. Who would've ever thought that out of all people, Tiger would be scared of thunder? But she is part cat, after all. Maybe she's simply a bit phobic of rain in general?

Tossing that thought aside, he went over to his closet to get ready for their spontaneous training session, still wondering where she was, when the question resolved itself as he opened it. Sitting seemingly uncomfortable between two piles of clothes was none other than Ava herself, facing him with an unreadable expression. While he found himself too dumbfounded to say anything (and that was a real rarity when it came to Peter), she simply got to her feet to leave the room as quick as she could, but the taken aback boy was still blocking her way.

"Would you mind, Pete? You heard Sam, we need to be ready in less than thirty minutes," Ava said as if there was nothing odd about the fact that she had been hiding in his closet at all.

"What are you doing inside of my closet?" Peter wanted to know after recovering from his lack of words, still not bothering to step aside.

Ava sighed, sensing that this conversation would be lasting much longer that she wanted it to. "It wouldn't have been too great if Sam had seen us sleeping together in your bed with your arm around me, would it? Could you let me pass now?" she clarified, poking her index finger into his chest.

"Hold on," he exclaimed, swatting her hand away, "I'm not the one who snuck into another room in the middle of the night, because I was scared of a thunderstorm." Having said that, he could literally watch how Ava's expression turned from slightly uncomfortable to dead-serious and even a tiny bit angered within a matter of seconds.

"Listen closely, Parker, because it seems like I need to get a few things straight," she darted him an angry glare, "First, I am not scared of thunderstorms! I simply dislike them, a lot. And second, if you dare tell anyone about this, I'll slay you and make it look like an accident!" she hissed in a threatening tone while lifting her finger toward him. The low growl that came from her throat made Peter take a big step back.

I can't be the only one who finds it kind of scary how Ava can just turn all catty within one second, can I? Only me? Really?

"Moi?" he let out a quick laugh as he put up his arms in defense, "Oh come on, Ava! I can be as silent as a grave. I'm great at keeping secrets. Just like when I found out that Sam's biggest fear is-..." he almost blurted out, but stopped dead at her disapproving glance. "I won't tell anyone."

"Wise decision. And would you be kind enough to finally let me get out of your closet? It smells like dirty socks in here!" she wrinkled her nose while fanning a hand in front of her face.

"Don't be exaggerating!", he contradicted as he stepped aside to let her pass, "It can't be that ba-ugh," he took a smell himself, ending up displaying a copy of Ava's reaction. "Alright, you've made one good point there. It smells like something died in there."

To his surprise, Ava let out a quiet laugh before giving him a small smile. "How about we stop talking about your disgusting closet and actually get ready? I really don't want to clean the conference room again, because we come too late!" With that, she quickly headed to her own room while Peter started to get changed.

Peter, now dressed in his costume sans mask, literally raced down the stairs and straightly going for the kitchen where he almost collided with Luke who was busy munching away a bowl of cereals while Danny put his dishes into the sink, both already changed as well.

"Namaste, my friend," the monk quickly bowed at him while Luke mumbled something with his mouth full that remotely sounded like 'good morning'.

Giving his friends a quick nod, Peter fished an apple out of the fruit basket on the counter and shoved it into his mouth, casting a hectic look at the wall-mounted clock.

"Crap!" he exclaimed after quickly swallowing his bite, pulling his mask over his face, "We are so going to be late."

Powerman and Iron Fist put on their bandana and aviators as they hastily went up to Spider-Man who looked around for the rest of the team. "Where are Tiger and Nova?" he asked the two boys.

"I'm here!" a female voice yelled from behind them as White Tiger hurried down the stairs with Nova right behind her.

"Good, so we're ready to go!" Luke said, "We can be glad that Aunt May's got her yoga class today!"

"Agreed. Now, come on guys. We really gotta go!" Peter told them, opening the door and rushing outside, the others right on his heels.

"Wait! But I didn't have my breakfast yet!"

"NOVA!"

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