Recluse → Peter Parker

you wouldn't understand

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Five hours later, after the team arrived safely in Washington for the decathlon, Andi was sitting at the desk inside her hotel room. Her legs were propped up on the table and she held a science textbook in her arms, as per usual. She was getting ready for the decathlon, though she knew she didn't need to. Andi possessed the intellectual capability of winning the decathlon by herself in her sleep, but a person could never be too safe or too smart.

Several minutes later, the hotel room door opened, and Michelle stepped in. Her curly brown hair was a mess on top of her head, and her sweater looked as if it was ready to fall off of her petite body. She looked exhausted, just as most of the decathlon students looked, but unlike the rest of the team, Michelle didn't care enough to hide just how tired she was.

"Someone's sleepy," Andi spoke, her eyes on the words scattered across the page.

Michelle scoffed and plopped down on the bed closest to the door. Of course, Andi had chosen the bed closest to the window and the air conditioner. It was impossible for her to get much rest without a gentle noise lulling her to sleep, or without a temperature of at least -32 degrees Fahrenheit, and Michelle was perfectly fine with that. "A bit of light protesting can wear out a person," she replied.

Andi snickered and closed her textbook. "You actually went protesting?"

"Of course I did." Michelle grabbed a book from her bag. "What else did you think I'd be doing in the nation's very corrupt Capitol?"

"I dunno," Andi shrugged. "Michelle things."

"And here I figured you'd be out doing Andi things," Michelle said with a knowing smirk on her face. One of her favorite things to do was tease Andi about her relationship with Peter and Ned, but mostly Peter, and Andi was starting to pick up on that fairly quickly.

"Oh really?" Andi shook her head. "What exactly did you expect me to be doing?"

"Hanging out with Peter."

Andi let out a breath and moved to her bed. She hadn't spoken to Peter at all since he boarded the bus with the rest of the team. It wasn't that she didn't want to, but she couldn't find a way to speak to him the right way while she was so worried about him. She was supposed to look after him, she was supposed to protect him, and she wanted to more than anything, but Peter was being so reckless about everything that she wasn't sure she could handle it any longer. She had hope that he could figure things out, but if things didn't work out, she didn't want to be around to watch him get hurt, regardless of whether or not it was her duty. That was a pain she wasn't sure she would be able to get over.