Liz Parker

"Peter! Can you get that?!"

Peter heard his name from his room and the home line ringing from the living room. Why Aunt May insisted on keeping a landline when they both had cellphone, Peter would never understand, but he padded out of his room diligently, passed Aunt May trying to salvage dinner, and picked up the phone.

"Hello? Hello?" Peter paused for a moment longer, then hung up. "Wrong number."

Aunt May swore under her breath. "We're having Pizza tonight."

~*~*~

"Who do you think your next enemy will be?"

"I don't know, Ned."

"Do you think it'll be a guy or a girl? I'm kind of hoping for a girl since girl bad guys tend to be really hot and have cool names - Do you think they'll be human like the Vulture or someone like those aliens that attack? Do you think you'll ever fight someone who's also like, a bug of some sort? Spider-Man vs Queen Bee. Spider-man vs Mantis Man."

Peter sighed, but he had a faint smile on his lips as he and his best friend walked down the street. Ned was going on one of his tangents again about Spider-Man and while Peter was thankful to have someone to talk to about this, even though Aunt May knew too, sometimes he wished Ned would fanboy a little less. He did have to admit, though, that things had been pretty quiet for big bad guys lately and while Peter knew he should be thankful for that, he still kind of missed helping more than just old people crossing the street.

"I don't know Ned, maybe. Maybe it'll be someone from Thor's planet or like, some mutated animal like King Kong."

"REALLY?!"

Peter shrugged. "Yeah, maybe."

They reached their school and fell into a comfortable silence.

English class went by as it normally did and Spanish he learned how to write poems even though he was pretty sure they were terrible. Lunch he spent with Ned as always, but it was when he got to science class that things seemed off. Mister Harrington was late - he was never late.

Peter sat down next to Ned and leaned toward him, whispering. "What's going on?"

Ned shrugged and whispered back, "I don't know. Rumour has it Mister Harrington got ebola and won't be coming in today."

"Ebola?"

"Or Mono. It's hard to say."

Before Peter can reply, the murmuring stopped as the substitute teacher walked in and politeness in the class set in. Peter's eyes followed the new teacher. There was something about her. Something, familiar.

Someone behind Peter made some sort of comment that the replacement was 'an improvement' even though she hated started to talk yet. The new teacher, whose long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail, put her books on top of the teacher's desk and turned around. She looked nervous. As Peter tried to put a finger on why she felt so familiar and while he stared at her, he suddenly realized she was staring back.

His heart seized.

"Hello everyone. I'm Ms. Evans." Her eyes moved away from Peter before she finished that sentence, but Peter felt like he couldn't breathe.

Ned leaned toward Peter and whispered, "Dude, the substitute teacher is hot."

Peter had no idea what the rest of the class was about. All he knew was when the bell rang and everyone else filed out, he told Ned to go on without him and hoped Coach Wilson wouldn't be too angry with him.

He stood at his desk, staring, as Ms. Evans busied herself with erasing the blackboard. His mouth felt dry. Was it hot in the room? Could he even make his voice work right now?

"....Liz."

The woman at the front of the class stilled, her grip on the eraser tightened. Peter knew he was right.

"Liz."

She lowered the eraser and after a moment, her voice sounded.

"Hi, Peter."

Liz turned around, now in her thirties, and offered a weak smile though there was sadness in her eyes.

"Liz, you're -"

"I'm old."

"No, that's not. You're here."

Liz nodded, searching the classroom for a moment before her gaze landed back on the boy she knew so well. A boy who hadn't seemed to change much from when she remembered. "You look like you're doing well."

Peter nodded. "Yeah, yeah I am." He started towards her. "You look good too. I mean, you look like you're doing well too."

He walked all the way up to the front of the class, but when he got closer, she pulled back, keeping a small distance between them.

"I'm married, Peter."

That was when Peter saw the ring on her finger. "...oh."

It felt silly to her to feel as guilty as she did. Maybe coming to the school was a mistake. "To Max. A - well, a lot of things happened when I went back home, but...I'm happy."

Standing there in front of Peter, Liz could feel all the old emotions rush back in. She still help butterflies when she looked at him. Even now, after everything, her feelings for Peter couldn't be dampened.

"Oh... that's - that's good." Peter wanted Liz to be happy, after all. There were a lot of other emotions mixed up in that, but he knew at least he was partially thankful that Liz was safe and happy.

"I just -" Liz seemed to hesitate as she stood there. "I just wanted to know if you were really here. If you - that you were happy. And to tell you thank you, Peter. You helped me be who I am today."

Peter had no idea how to respond to that, though he forced a smile to appear. He was happy, he was, but there were a flurry of emotions right now and it was hard to focus on just one.

Liz took a step forward. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come."

Peter shook his head. "No, it's okay. I'm glad you did." He just - he didn't know what to say or how he should feel right now or even what to do.

Liz smiled just a little and opened her mouth to say something else when a smaller voice cried out,

"Mama!"

At the door there was a tall, dark, and handsome older gentleman. He smiled lovingly over at Liz while a toddler boy appeared rushing to his mother's side. She crouched down to greet the boy and give him a hug.

"Mama! I'm hungry!"

Liz laughed and tussled the boy's hair. "Alright, Peter. I'll be one more minute, okay? Go wait outside with daddy."

The boy giggled and ran back to his father while Liz stood back up.

"We, um. We named him after you."

"Oh..." Peter felt his face flush, though he wasn't quite sure why.

Liz stepped forward. "I'm glad I got to see you again, Peter. I just wanted to let you know - you're special. And, you'll find someone out there and she'll be the luckiest girl alive." Something seemed to flash in Liz's eyes, something like sadness, but she leaned in to kiss Peter on the cheek before it was readable.

"Goodbye, Peter."

Just like that, Peter was suddenly alone in the classroom. It was only moments later he realized he was crying.