waving through a window.
I woke up and found Elle curled up with Mer on the air mattress with me. I smile down at her. I scratch Mer's head lightly and I feel her purr. I get dressed and brush my teeth.
As I'm spitting, I look over to the trashcan and see the paper towel from last night. I feel dizzy and clutch the sides of the sink. I clumsily reach into the cabinet and grab a bottle of my pills. I twist off the cap lazily and let it fall to the floor. I haphazardly pour 3 of the small pills into my hand. I get some water and take them. I wait a minute before trying to bend down and pick up the cap to the bottle, knowing that if I tried to earlier, I would have fallen and been hurt. Speaking from experience.
My head is still spinning but I manage to pick up the cap without falling. I hear a stirring in the bedroom. I stand up and walk in there.
“Good morning, Elle,” I smile at her. She is beautiful even when she has just woken up. It takes all of my might not to dive on to the air mattress and kiss her this instant.
“Good morning, Keller,” she smiles back a goofy tired smile before yawning.
I walk over to the speaker and connect it to my phone. I start playing “I wanna be” from Starshipand she beams. She starts quietly singing along.
“I love Joey Richter. His voice is so smooth,” she trails off.
“Yeah,” I smile along with her.
I take my phone with me to the kitchen, connecting it to the speaker in there. She follows behind
and pulls subconsciously on the sweatshirt I gave her last night. She looks so cute in it. She gets on her phone and seems shocked suddenly and jumps up from the stool she was sitting on.
“Shit, shit, shit” she muttered.
“What’s wrong?”
“I have a few texts and missed calls from Peter. I told him I was gonna be here for the night.”
“I’m sure he will understand, Elle,” I reach my hand up to put it on her shoulder. She gets up before my hand reached her. She jogs to the bedroom and starts packing her stuff.
“Elle, let me help,” I say handing her her clothes from last night, still slightly bloodstained.
“I sent him the address. He said he’d be here in 10 minutes.”
“Enough time to eat. Elle you need to calm down, it is not like anything happened between us,” I blush realizing my contractions have slipped away and something of an accent was starting to show.
“Okay, fine.” She takes a deep breath, and brings her bag into the kitchen with us.
A few minutes later a knock on the door shocked me into dropping the eggs off my fork. Elle giggled slightly at it. I blush and go to open the door.
“Peter!” I say slapping his hand and pulling him into what he dubbed the “bro hug”.
“Keller, hey, is Elle okay?” He sounded happy to see me but also very concerned at the same time.
“Yeah. She is fine, she’s” I emphasize the contraction to make it clear, “in the kitchen eating.”
“Thanks for taking care of her, Keller.”
“It i- it’s no problem! Anything for a friend.”
Peter walked into the kitchen and Elle jumped up and hugged him. I glanced in and as soon as I saw him kiss her, I was in the bedroom within a seconds time.
I look down at my feet. I was standing on the air mattress. I step off, careful not to fall. I sit on my own bed and rub my temple. If Elle finds out she would hate me. She’d hate who I am, what I am. I need to remember why I was sent here to Midgard. Protect Peter Parker at all costs. Mr. Stark can’t stand more days like what happened after the snap. I am here to protect him from that.
I am pulled out of my spiraling thoughts by a light knocking on my door.
"Keller?"
I look up and see her in the doorway holding the sweater in her hand. I smile and stand up. We meet in the middle of the room. She hands me the sweater and pulls me into a hug. I smile into her hair.
"Thank you, Keller"
"Anything for you, Ms. Vincent."
She pulls out of the hug.
"For the days when you cannot find yours," I say, handing the sweater back to her.
She smiles.
"I'll see you at work, Starship Ranger."
Her and Peter leave and she waves through the window at me and I wave back.
Once they were gone, I go inside and deflate the air mattress. I gather the sheets and put them in the hamper.
When I move the deflated body of the mattress, I see a yellow blob on the floor. I pick it up, revealing it to be Elle's sweater that she was searching for.
I smile, her faint scent of peaches and cream was left lingering in my bedroom. The peach smell increases as I neatly fold the sweater.
I take the folded sweater and tie it neatly with a piece of twine. I place it in the passenger seat of my car and drive to Stark Tower.
I arrive at the tower, seeing Happy and Tony rush out. As Tony rushes past, he looks me in the eye with a look that pleadingly said "look out for Peter". I ask Jane if Peter is here. She checks and tells me he is in the lab. I nod and rush to the elevator and head to the lab. I look at the sweater in my hand.
The elevator opens and look around to make sure no-one is nearby. I arrive at the lab in a second's time.
I slightly tap on the door to the lab. He looks up from the web shooter that he was fixing and sees me.
"Hey dude!" he said, walking over and bro hugging me.
“Hey Peter.”
“I thought Mr. Stark was supposed to be here to help me today. He was gonna help me with my web shooters and making them mo-”
“He had an emergency meeting at the compound I guess.” I say cutting his geeky rambling off.
Peter wasn't an unattractive kid and his rambling just kept making him more attractive.
He smiled sadly, probably disappointed he was left out. He nodded with understanding. I place my hand on his shoulder and squeeze.
“Hey, it’s fine, I can help!”
“What do you know about this kind of tech?” he scoffed.
“A lot more than you think I do.”
Peter and I work until we hear a knocking and look up.