Peter's sister, Nova II NovaVerse 1

Peter

"Why don't you go to sleep right now?" I sign to her. Nova looks really bad right now. And I don't know what to do to help her. My enhanced immune system means that I don't get sick, so I'm not really a master on what to do at the moment. "If I sleep, I'll remember. I don't want to." Her signing is really sloppy right now. I put my hand to her head. She's practically on fire. I go and grab an ice pack from the fridge and hand to her. "Remember what?" She looks up for a moment, and signs again. "A few things. Like that time, I was beaten with a metal bat, that wasn't fun." I look at her in shock and confusion. Why is she telling me all this? She never opens up. Especially with what happened in her universe. But she has been acting weird. Maybe she's too tired to care. Might as well take a chance to find out what happened.

"What else happened?" She raises her hands to sign again. "He tried burning me a few times. And another time he put a knife in fire before using it to cut into my skin." I stand up immediately at that. "It's fine, not that big a deal. I'm fine." Fine? How could she say that's fine? She was literally tortured. "It's not fine. That-that's really really serious." She doesn't believe me. "No-, no, its fine. I deserved it anyways. There was this other thing he did once, it was weird."

"What?" I sign. "What else did he do to you?"

"He took off my cloths and his own after he broke a few of my bones. I don't know how to describe it."

I know what he did to her. Thats bad. Really bad. How can someone do so many bad things to a kid? I better tell Mr. Stark later... or now. I pull out my phone and text him. Then I put the phone back in my pocket. "I'll keep you safe as you sleep. Don't think about him," I sign to her. I go to the couch and place a blanket around the two of us. May will be back soon. She'll know what to do. She'll help us out. Nova's asleep only moments later, and I sleep too.

****Next day (Saturday)****

May came back last night later than expected. We decided to drive Nova back to the Avengers tower so Bruce can help her, now that we know what's going on. We spent maybe an hour waiting for Bruce's response. "She's ok. But there is something unrelated that might help her in day-to-day life. I'm thinking about a cochlear implant. What do you think? If Tony could design them, she could get it before next week. I could implant it." That's a great idea. She could understand classes and be able to understand other people better. "If you think it will help her, then sure," May replies. He looks over at me, and I know what he needs me to do.

I decide to run on the ceiling and to the lab, where Mr. Stark always is. "Mr. Stark! I have something we can build!" He looks at me confused. "That's great, but how about you get off my ceiling first?" I feel embarred. I get off the ceiling and drop to the floor. "A cochlear implant. Bruce said that he already has the part that goes inside, but how about we make the outer part of it?" I see him think for a second before turning back to me. "Let's get started."

We work for a few hours, and eventually create it. I didn't help out as much, but that's probably because Mr. Stark knows how to build almost anything. "I'll let Bruce know it's finished," Mr. Stark tells me. 'So, I've heard the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man has been missing. Want to tell me what that's about?" I sigh. "It's just-I- I don't know. I've just been a little tired lately, and Nova needs my help. Not to mention I had midterms this week. I'll get back to saving people again soon." I can't let people die because I'm tired. I can't do that. "Don't worry about it too much," Mr. Stark says. I slowly nod. I can always get back to it after Nova gets better. She seemed much better after a good night's sleep. Her first one in a while. "There might be HYDRA agents working in this universe," Mr. Stark says abruptly. "Do you think... Do you think Nova's in danger?" I ask. He thinks for a few moments. "Keep an eye out for anyone suspicious. Watch her and May. They might be in danger." That thought makes me shiver. I stand up and start to leave. I want to be Spider-Man again. Swinging takes my mind off things. "Pete," Mr. Stark calls out my name. "This is for Nova." He hands me a black and blue folded suit. I look back up at him and walk out the door.

Nova's waiting outside the door for me. "What are you doing here?" I ask. "What do you have?" She signs back. She didn't answer my question, but if she doesn't want to answer something, she doesn't. I learned that the hard way. "A suit for you, so you can fight crime with me when you're better," I sign. She takes it away from me and unfolds it. The suit has similar eyes as my Spider-man suit, it's blue on the sleeves, the rim of the hoodie, and on the soles of the feet. And has a strip of blue around the waist. Everything else is black. Except for the white eyes. "I want to fight," she signs. I shake my head. "No, no you can't. Not yet. You have to relax and feel better first." I put my hands on her shoulders, but she shakes them off. "I'm better than yesterday. I'll be fine. Come with me." Her eyes look pleading, and I can't help but nod. If I'm with her, nothing bad can go wrong. Her face lights up, maybe even brighter than the first night I met her. Almost nothing feels better than seeing her happy.

I take out my own suit and enter the bathroom, taking off my cloths to replace it with the red and blue suit. I put it on except for the mask, and I head out the door as Nova enters, changing her own cloths. After a few minutes, she comes out. It looks perfect on her. I hole out my hand for her to take, and I lead her to the roof of the tower. "I'm going to hold you and jump off the building, so don't get scared," I say, even though most people who swing with me get scared. I take her by the waist and jump, feeling the winter air hitting my face as we fall. I look up and web to the nearest building I can see, and we swing. The feeling of freedom and adrenaline is hard to beat. Nova lets out a small squeal but returns to quiet soon after. "Karen, any crime?" I ask my AI. "Yes, Peter. Sending directions now." A pathway shows up, and I follow it. We swing through the city, and Nova slowly moves her head out of the crook of my neck to look around. The sun makes the buildings shine. "Karen, what time is it?" I yell. "It is currently 10:42, Peter."

I swing down into an alleyway where a group of masked people stand in a group, some of them are holding guns, and two men are trying to hold a boy by the shoulders. Looks around my age. I swing down to the ground and set down Nova, cocking my head at her to let her know these are the people to fight. "Hey guy's, what's up?" I speak. They all turn their heads in our direction and raise their guns to us. This might be a little dangerous for Nova's first mission, especially when it's only been about a week since she got away from eight months of abuse. And not to mentions she was insanely sick yesterday. But she's strong. It's only once.

This is going to be interesting.