I'm working on Marvel's Spider-Man in American comics.

Chapter 105 I just want to kiss
Peter bought a sandwich and sat down to eat it by the broadcast antenna on the spire of the Empire State Building. He didn't have to wait long before Cindy quietly climbed up and sat down next to him.

Just like with Mysterio, Cindy knew Peter was waiting for her; after all, who would sit motionless on the top floor of the Empire State Building?

"Want some? I bought you one."

Peter picked up a sandwich from the side and handed it to Cindy. Cindy hesitated for a moment before taking the sandwich. She didn't eat it, but just held it in her hand, took off her napkin, and lowered her head. After a long while, she spoke hesitantly.

"Sorry……"

"There's nothing to apologize for. You didn't do anything wrong. In fact, you arrived just in time. Scorpion is very strong. If you hadn't arrived in time, I probably would have been too late by the time I got there."

Peter comforted Cindy, explaining that in reality, she hadn't done anything wrong; in fact, she had done quite well. Aside from getting beaten up by Scorpion, which was rather pathetic, she hadn't done anything fundamentally wrong. Cindy, still with her head down, simply said, "Thank you."

Peter certainly deserves our gratitude; his eagerness and concern in this matter were perhaps no less than Cindy's. Realizing those around him might be in danger, he rushed to the scene immediately, even summoning the Avengers to cordon off the area in case Scorpion escaped. He even called in the telepaths to handle the aftermath.

“You’re welcome. I just… I’ve always been concerned about the safety of the people around me, my aunt and uncle, Gwen, Harry, and so on, so I’m particularly interested in this.” Peter didn’t think it was anything to be thanked for: “But when I realized this had happened, I was actually… very scared. Because you’re a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, your information can’t be guaranteed to be safe, and your family has been threatened by Scorpion.”

Peter is worried that Scorpion might have also found out that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. If Scorpion succeeds, will he target Parker's family next?

So he was terrified and furious. He was completely immersed in the fight against the scorpion, which was probably the most disgusting creature he had ever seen, on par with Cal King. If Cindy hadn't stopped him, Peter really wanted to smash the scorpion to the ground and kill it over and over again.

“I’m not entirely sure what S.H.I.E.L.D. will do, but you can probably rest assured. Emma Foster, that X-Men with telepathic abilities, has deleted all clues about you, well, our identities from Scorpion’s mind, and he’ll never investigate us again—or rather, he’ll never be able to make any inferences based on the information again.”

If possible, Peter even hoped the White Queen could make Scorpion suffer from dementia, but she didn't. As compensation, she told him about Kingpin, Scorpion, and Mysterio's plans, and how Peter finally found out who Kingpin had funded, who provided the Chitauri parts modification plan, who modified Scorpion, and who provided the high-tech theft coordinates—Doctor Octopus, Otto Octavia.

However, this is not the problem Peter needs to solve right now.

"I'm waiting for you here because I feel you're not doing well. At school, and just now... what were you thinking?"

Cindy lowered her head, hugged her knees, and remained silent for a while before giving Peter a somewhat unexpected answer: "I wasn't thinking about anything."

"what?"

“I…I don’t know. I never knew what I was supposed to do. My parents just said I should go to a good school, so I studied hard. They thought I should go to the science fair to get more credits, so I went, and then I got bitten by that spider.”

Cindy, who had gained the Spider-Man powers, was at a loss. She didn't know what to do, so as usual, she accepted her parents' arrangements and notified the government. S.H.I.E.L.D. came to her parents' house and persuaded them, so Cindy joined S.H.I.E.L.D.

"I... I didn't gain this ability because I thought my parents were right. It's just because I didn't know what to do, and then what?"

Peter Parker wanted to help others out of his own will, while Cal King wanted to be a bad person out of his own will. As for Cindy Moon, she found herself without any purpose; she had absolutely no idea what she should do or what she wanted to do. She was the kind of child who would just stare blankly when asked by the teacher what she wanted to be when she grew up.

“Dad thought you didn’t need to kill someone for someone like Scorpion, so he asked me to stop you, and I listened. But I wasn’t sure, that guy wanted to hurt my family, I felt… ah, I don’t even know what I should do at that time.”

Peter heard Cindy sigh: "At least if I join S.H.I.E.L.D., they can tell me what I should do."

"Or, to put it simply. There must be something you want to do, right? You love reading; I see you're reading David Dickens, or maybe Balzac or something else… We've been bitten by a spider, and perhaps we can't immediately decide what to do with this ability. But at least we can be clear about what things will make us happy and what things will make us unhappy." Peter looked quietly at Cindy. "Perhaps you can think of some things you'd be happy doing, but your parents wouldn't approve?"

Cindy scratched her head. Her parents wouldn't approve, but she'd done something that might make her happy? Why hadn't she stopped Peter from killing the scorpion? Would that have made her happy?

She looked at Peter Parker, the boy she had been following since that day, the one who knew what he was doing, the one who appeared when she and her family needed him most. If Coulson asked that question again, Cindy's answer would still only be "a kind person."

She actually envied Peter, not because Peter saved many people or was very successful as Spider-Man, but because he always knew what he was doing.

"Could you take off your mask?"

"Aha, revealing Spider-Man's true identity is a good choice."

Peter smiled, removed his mask, and looked at Cindy with a smile. Cindy looked into Peter's eyes; they were black, just like his hair, which was quite rare.

"I... when I was stopping you, I was thinking, I can't see your eyes, how were you looking at me then?"

"Perhaps it's like it is now...?"

Cindy did do something her parents wouldn't approve of, but she herself wasn't sure if she would be happy about it.

She simply wrapped her arms around Peter's neck and then silenced him with a kiss.

She let go, stared into his eyes, then quickly looked away, turned her head, and looked to the side.

"Uh, I didn't expect this..."

"It's just... thank you, I wanted to say thank you."

"Perhaps...we could change our clothes, grab a coffee at a roadside stall, and then talk..."

Peter Parker watched as Cindy pulled up her mask and leaped off the building as if fleeing. Peter could only nod and finish his sentence: "Is there anything else you want to do? That sounds like you're being a scoundrel."

"Alright, Parker, it's getting late. Go home and give Uncle Ben and Aunt May a hug." Peter put on his mask and was about to jump off the roof when a spark appeared out of thin air in front of him.

Hmm? A spark?

Sparks flashed, tracing an arc taller than a person, and then a cloaked, gray-haired wizard with a goatee emerged, staring at Peter.

“Peter Benjamin Parker? We need to discuss the fact that you opened 23 multiverse rifts in one minute.”

　The advantage of using an English title is that it appears more subtle.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)