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After the last time Cindy had tried to snoop in Peter’s life, and Flash had gotten involved, and as Peter and Ned turned away and she glimpsed the embarrassment and brief but deeply uncomfortable tint in Peter’s eyes, she’d resolved to stop interfering. It wasn’t kind of her to pry in somebody else’s life like that. Especially when it meant accusing him of first being a prostitute, then a drug dealer, then an illegitimate heir to one of the richest, rudest men on the planet, and then a parent, all in the span of two or three months.
The most sleuth-like Cindy got nowadays was doodling on her homework and watching Buzzfeed Unsolved. Which… was a let-down, after all the excitement and mystery of one resident disaster, Peter Benjamin Parker.
She made it to almost five whole weeks before she realised that maybe she had been a little too ambitious, and expectant, and maybe the obvious answer had been staring her in the face all along.
Cindy didn’t know what to do.
She’d met Peter’s Aunt May exactly three times, twice after a decathlon meet and once many years ago for a school excursion. Peter always had an explanation up his sleeve. She’s working a lot more now, he’d protest quietly. It checked out: Peter’s family had never been rolling in the money, and since Peter’s uncle died Cindy supposed that his aunt would have needed to pick up extra shifts. And after all, it had always been Uncle Ben who turned up to every field trip, every parent-teacher interview, every open-classroom day, and every band concert.
Peter’s friends (admittedly, this was mainly only Ned, since Peter was kind of a nerd, and Flash was really vicious and isolating in middle school) had even been calling him Uncle Ben for over a year before the cop died.
Peter had grown quieter and quieter. He’d been jumpy and overexcited, in the week or so leading up to his uncle’s death; then he all but turned into a skinny, silent, sulking loner overnight. Which Cindy had thought she’d understood.
But what if she’d been wrong?
(It wouldn’t be the first time.)
Cindy went to the back of her notebook, the part she hadn’t opened in weeks, and straight to the page that had a doodle of Spider-Man’s mask on it (let’s face it, Cindy was a horrible artist, and Spidey’s mask was so geometric and simple that she found it dotting her schoolbooks, running out of her pen every time she turned around). At the top of the page, on the very first line, was written, PETER’S BRUISES, BROKEN BONES, UNEXPLAINED ABSENSES (AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS INJURIES).
No! She wasn’t a stalker! Shut up, disembodied MJ voice!
The list had started at least seven months ago, long before Cindy had collected her mojo (and lost her manners) and decided to investigate for herself. It was more than a little crazy, how long it was. Ridiculously long. Disturbingly long.
Item #1 was a purple-green bruise that slipped out from underneath Peter’s sleeve when he reached across the table for a pen.
Cindy bit her lip.
She didn’t know what to do.
Item #2: A bruise around the neckline of his shirt.
Cindy found a brochure titled Domestic Violence: How To Find Help and, as discretely as possible, slipped it into Peter’s schoolbag at the next possible opportunity.
Then she told herself that it was fine, that really, it was just a suspicion, a wild guess really, and what else was she supposed to do? What if – against all hope – she was wrong?
The next day, Peter cornered her behind the library, flapping the flier in her face hysterically.
“Sorry,” she said, before he even had a chance to accuse her.
“I— Cindy, I know this was you—” he spluttered.
“Wrong?” she queried hopefully.
“Dead wrong,” he confirmed.
She relaxed.
“What’s with all the rumours, by the way?” he asked.
She avoided looking at him, because Peter Parker was a goddamn puppy who had mastered the affectionately sad look better than even her little brother. “I didn’t exactly start them on purpose.”
He frowned.
“You’re a hecking mystery, you know?” she snapped.
He laughed.
“I just. I want to know what’s going on.”
Was he going to be mad at her? Cindy closed her eyes and cursed her internal MJ voice.
“I overstepped, I know,” she sighed. “I feel really bad.”
She waited, and when she couldn’t hear a rebuke, she opened her eyes to find him shaking his head amusedly. Peter clapped her on the back. “If you ever figure me out, let me know,” he told her. “And try not to accidentally ruin my life while you’re at it.”
Cindy gaped.
Peter stuffed the brochure back in her fingers and slipped around the corner before she could croak in confusion, “…are you saying you’re alright with me snooping in your life?”
Maybe he just thinks you’ve got no hope of every solving the mystery.
SHUT UP, DISEMBODIED MJ VOICE!