WHO: KAMALA KHAN AND PETER PARKER WHAT: MID-AIR CRASH, REALIZATION OF ~FEELINGS~ WHEN: END OF APRIL, FEW DAYS AFTER EID WHERE: VALLO SKIES WARNINGS: NONE STATUS: COMPLETE
Being outside under the night sky past dinner time always helped Kamala think better on anything she needed to think about, whether it was about school, family, how to sneak out of her parents’ place for AvengerCon, or a boy she thought who was her friend who just got her jewelry but who everyone seemed to think there was something more there.
The jewelry piece, despite her confusion, hung around her neck right then, having been on for the past few days since Peter had gifted it to her. Even if her brain was all what does it meeaaaaaan, it made her feel good getting a glimpse of it whenever she changed into her suit or got dressed for classes or work. She took it off right before bed or shower but always made sure it was nearby because… well, because! It was a gift! From a good friend! Those were always super important to keep nearby, right??
Kamala stopped hopping around her platforms for a minute, standing in the middle of the air. She took that moment to put her hands on her head and give a frustrated high-pitched groan. What the heck was she feeling? Did she like him or did she like the idea of liking someone? Was it LIKE like or another like??
She shook out her hands and decided city-patrolling wasn’t working. Maybe she could hop over to the Wilson house and play with Lola for a bit. Kamala decided to change her course then, turning around one corner.
And immediately got hit by something coming her way.
Nothing helped Peter think more than swinging through the city, and he’d had a lot to think about these last few days after his talk with Wanda.
Peter had no doubts that he liked Kamala, as a friend. What wasn’t to like? She was caring, she was kind, she worked hard, she was compassionate. But liking her as a friend wasn’t what was in question. What was in question, was whether he liked her as more than a friend.
When he thought of Kamala, he thought of her light. Not just her superpower, but the light that was inside her. He thought about how she’d come to Hell after him, how she’d endured what felt like years of him watching his Aunt May die, over and over again, and how she’d stuck around until she’d gotten through to him. He thought about how when he had good news he wanted to share it with her, and how when he had bad news he wanted to sit with her. About how much he’d wanted to make sure she had a good Eid so she wouldn’t feel so homesick. She had her parents and her brother and all her friends to miss, and Peter couldn’t replace them, he knew, but he’d wanted to make her feel a little less alone.
Not that she would have felt alone, with Kate and Carol and all her other friends here. But that didn’t matter.
And then his talk with Wanda, well… maybe these weren’t all friendly feelings.
Peter swung around a corner, and crashed, hard, into something – no, someone – midair. They – Kamala – was falling, and Peter released his web to dive after her, like a diver, cutting down on his wind-resistance so he could close the distance between them. He drew level with her, hooked an arm under her knees, and shot out another web with his other one, bending it so that it would support her behind her back.
He swung up, released, and flew just a couple of feet so he landed on the ledge of an upper-story window, holding Kamala bridal style.
“We really have got to stop meeting like this,” he said, and even if Kamala couldn’t see his face under his mask, she probably could hear the grin in his voice.
Her power would have kicked in as she fell, at some point. It seemed to sometimes have a mind of its, like a self-preservation thing. The only thing on Kamala’s mind was a swear word in Urdu that would have made her mother punish her with soap in her mouth. Thankfully, it didn’t come out. After what felt like literally a second, she realized she wasn’t falling anymore.
Holy mega speed reflexes, Batman.
“Peter!” Kamala’s arms had seemed to automatically circle him during his save, which was making her blush like something fierce after that realization. But she had a grin on herself. “I didn’t even sense you! See you? You’re the one with the sense. I’m the one… with… the eyes… I mean. Hi.”
Peter was glad that his mask covered his own expression. He was sure that it would’ve given away just about every recently realized feeling he had.
“My Spider Senses only work if there’s danger,” he said, and then tilted his head. “Still, you’d think that a mid-air collision three stories up would count as ‘dangerous.’” He shrugged, Kamala still in his arms, and could feel the heat rising to his cheeks when he realized it.
“I should uh… put you down. You good here? Or, no, what am I saying. I can climb us up to the roof if you want?”
He could have put her down, she wouldn’t have minded. She would have been able to form a platform right there and stood on it. Maybe. Or there was a likelihood that her legs would be a bit shaky that she might just shatter it before she made anything solid, thus leading to him saving her again.
So she nodded instead. “Yeah, we can do that! Let’s go up to the roof! I didn’t have any plans to go anywhere else specific or anything, you know.”
“Alright, hang on tight,” Peter said. He kept her balanced on his arms, but placed his hands on the wall, and began the climb upwards. Once he made it to the top, he placed her on the ledge. “You’re alright?” he asked. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Reluctantly – yes, very reluctantly – Kamala let her arms drop from his shoulders, and she passed them down over her stomach, smoothing out a suit that obviously had no wrinkles and probably never would wrinkle because her mom had some sort of magic in her sewing capabilities.
“No, no, I’m fine, see? Superhero durability and all!” She struck a quick pose and then gave him finger guns. And then inwardly cringed. Was that corny? That seemed corny. She always did finger guns though, so why did it suddenly feel corny especially now?
Peter laughed, and grinned at her, realizing belatedly that she couldn’t see that grin, either. He peeled off his mask, and then sat down on the edge of the building, legs dangling over the side.
“Were you headed somewhere? I’m not going to make you late for an appointment with some criminals, am I?”
Kamala shook her head. Was she going somewhere? Probably but now she couldn’t remember. Or rather, she didn’t have a reason to go anywhere else anymore because she wanted to be here. She stood next to Peter instead, pulling her own mask off her face. “Nah, I bet they knew we were out here tonight so they’re probably hiding away. I saw nothing suspicious going on!” Well, suspicious for Vallo at least.
“Were you?” She assumed him sitting down and taking off his mask meant he was patrolling instead of wandering aimlessly with his head in clouds like she had been. Not that he needed to know that.
“No, not really,” Peter said. “I was keeping my eyes open, but Vallo’s usually pretty peaceful when there isn’t something bigger going on. Without a police radio, then you’re not very likely to just run into something happening.”
Peter did have a police radio that he’d rigged up in his bedroom at Wanda’s cottage, but he hadn’t been listening to it when he’d set out today.
“Honestly, sometimes it’s just nice to get out of my head. Webslinging helps with that in a weird way. You know, getting to watch everyone just going about their lives from above? It’s nice sometimes. And people don’t normally bother you when you’re six stories up.” He shot Kamala a conspiratorial grin. She probably knew what he meant.
“I get it,” she said as she matched his grin. “I also kind of wanted to get out of my head a bit. You know… a little break from studying.” Which was hardly what was on her mind but it seemed like a better answer than thinking of you most of the day. “I mean, I don’t usually expect to crash into someone six stories up, but you know, if it’s you, I guess it’s okay!”
“My thoughts exactly,” Peter said. “Here, sit down. The view’s pretty nice.” At least, it was pretty nice if you didn’t look down. But getting to see the skyline from… well, the skyline was pretty nice. There was all that open sky above and around them, and while some of the taller sky scrapers still rose above them, being able to look at the rooftops level with this building or a little shorter was pretty nice. “Would you believe I’m afraid of heights?”
Kamala did exactly that, letting her feet dangle off the ledge right next to him, her knee maybe an inch away from his. She looked straight out at Vallo, turning her head the other way, hoping he wouldn’t catch her blush. “Really? I would have never guessed. Can’t blame you though because if you think about the falling part, who wouldn’t be afraid of that?”
Which was a good time for her brain to start telling her to go ahead and look down. They weren’t as high as skyscrapers but… no, that wasn’t a good idea.
Peter grabbed the back of Kamala’s shirt and gently pulled her back so she’d stop looking down. “Don’t do that,” he cautioned her. “But yeah. I met a couple of other Peter Parkers before I ended up here, actually. And they loved sitting on top of places like the Empire State Building, or the Chrysler Building. Really tall places, and just looking out over New York. But I’ve never actually climbed that high. I mean, if you don’t count that time that I accidentally-on-purpose went to space outside the spaceship. My favourite place to perch when I wanted to think was on the roof of my high school. Much lower down to the ground.”
He shot her a grin. “Actually, one time me and some of my classmates went to Washington for an academic triathlon? Anyway, they got stuck up top with a bomb made out of alien tech. Long story. The fastest way to get to them was by crawling up the side of the Washington Monument, and I just froze. Almost couldn’t do it. I’ve been trying to get better about heights ever since. I was almost too late; I don’t think I’d have forgiven myself if I let someone get hurt because I was too afraid, you know?”
Kamala leaned back against his hand, giving him a grateful smile, choosing to focus on him instead of the height. “An academic triathlon? That sounds just as nerdy as my school. Not cool about the bomb though.” Did their universe just love putting high school teenagers in danger though? Though alien tech didn’t seem to match up with the DODC, she wouldn’t have put it past the DODC to use alien tech as well if they had the chance.
“Do you think you’d want to try to overcome that here? We got a lot of people who might help create something as tall as a skyscraper to work on it.”
“I was kind of a nerd in high school. I know, it must be hard to believe with how cool I am now.” It was an obvious joke. Peter was pretty far from cool, and he both knew that and was more than okay with it. “The bomb was an accident though. My best friend, Ned, was holding onto a bit of alien tech for me, and we didn’t realize that it was activated by radiation. So when it went through the X-Ray scanner…” Well, Kamala could probably figure it out.
He nodded. “I’ve been working on it a little,” he said, and leaned a little closer so he could point at one of the skyscrapers closer to the heart of downtown. “I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable enough just hanging out up there to think, but I’ve climbed up there a couple times now and it’s not so bad.”
Kamala glanced over at the direction he pointed out briefly. Very briefly. She swore her heart sped up just a little bit and she wondered if he had the ability to hear it. Super senses all around, maybe that was one too? Oh, god she hoped not. At least not until she figured out what this meant, if she wanted to risk her friendship with Peter to tell him how she felt. There was no denying it anymore, she definitely had feelings for him.
“I’m glad that helps,” she replied, then winced internally at such a mundane response. “I haven’t gone up that high yet so… unsure how I’ll do!”
Luckily for Kamala, Peter’s hearing was very much of the normal variety. “Well, if you ever want to, we can go up together. The buddy system is safest, right?”
“Right,” she replied, wondering at the same time if it sounded a little too enthusiastic. “Maybe… tonight? If you don’t have anything else in mind?”
“Yeah, I we can go tonight if you want,” Peter said enthusiastically. “That sounds way better than just swinging around by myself. He scanned the skyline and found one of the taller skyscrapers. Not the tallest, but he thought it was probably a good fit. “That one? You wanna race to the top?”
Kamala hadn’t done skyscrapers yet, and looking at one now, admittingly, was making her nervous. But she wasn’t going to be alone. And she also fully expected the Noor to catch her if anything happened. It was almost automatic protection anyway, like the automatic brakes on her father’s car. “Challenge accepted,” she proclaimed, jumping forward off the ledge but onto a large enough platform to hold her body weight.
Peter did not immediately follow her. Instead, did a brief mental calculation about angles and distances, and then he attached one web to the lightning rod on top of the roof, and the other to the doorway that led up to the roof.
He pulled back until the elastic spiderwebs were taut, straining with the kinetic energy stored with in them, and then released the stickiness from his feet.
He shot forward, flying through the air from his slingshot and passed Kamala, body angled like a dart to keep the wind-resistance down.
“See ya there,” he called cheerfully at her as he passed, allowing some loss of momentum so he could turn in the air and wave goodbye at her as he passed her. When he started to lose velocity, he began web slinging toward the tower, the remaining momentum allowing himself to swing faster than he might normally.
As he passed her, she couldn’t help it. Kamala slowed down to just watch him move. “Wow,” she breathed out, in absolute awe. Could she have had this if they were back in their world, among even more skyscrapers in New York City? She hoped the answer to that was yes, and that’s exactly what their friendship was like back in their world. Anything more… well, she would worry about that here in Vallo first.
After a moment’s pause, she started running again, sprinting across the sky, small purplish lights brightening up the sky with each step. It didn’t matter if she lost or won, because she still had the biggest grin on her face as she ran after him.