Chapter Thirteen

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A/N: hi!

so i thought this chapter would be late, turns out i didn't have as much of it to write as i thought so i figured i'd just go ahead and publish it!

anyway, let's get right into it!

that's phin up there, btw

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"You're a good kid, Phin.

Don't throw your life

away like I did, alright?"
————————————————————

When Peter joined the group during lunchtime in the cafeteria, he had a flashback of yesterday's decathlon meeting.

"Hey," Ada greeted when he saw him.

"Oh, hey Peter," Ned said.

Peter nervously glanced around. Oh, what the hell, he thought. If it meant that his and Ada's relationship would stay secret for a little longer, why not? So he leaned down to where Ada was sitting and kissed her cheek.

Then he stepped towards Vivian and did the same. She sat there, not moving but just staring in confusion at Ned. Reluctantly, Peter stepped towards Ned who already had his hand up in protest.

"H-Hey, hey, dude," he said, "I-I don't know where you got this whole trend from, but I'm not liking it."

"Yeah, it's a bit strange, Peter," Vivian said.

They all expectantly turned to Adelaide and she looked up, surprised they wanted her opinion. In her honest opinion, she didn't mind it at all. Not in the least. In fact, she wished Peter could kiss her whenever he wanted to, even at school. But only her. She didn't like the whole idea of him going around kissing everyone as a greeting.

"Y-Yeah," she said, realizing she had been taking too long to answer, "I don't like it." Peter gave her a look and she winced in apology, trying her best to say I'm sorry with her eyes.

"Well, if you guys really don't like it, I can stop," he sighed sadly, sitting down beside Ned who breathed in relief. That was one less awkward moment he'd have to live through. Little did he know that Peter was doing cartwheels inside with joy. He was off the hook.

Ada was right. One more slip up and they were toast.

"Have any of you talked to the new girl?" Vivian asked.

They all looked over at the table in the corner of the cafeteria where Phin Mason was sitting by herself, poking her food around and pretending to eat. She looked...sad.

"She kind of disappeared after the meeting yesterday," Ned said. Peter and Adelaide glanced discreetly at each other.

"Maybe we should invite her to sit with us," Vivian said. Ned agreed.

"Yeah," Adelaide said, standing up, "I'll go talk to her."

"I'll go with you," Peter said, standing up as well.

She looked at him for a moment, but he didn't say anything else. Call it a gut feeling or paranoia, but Peter wanted to be cautious of this girl. They both walked over to the table where she was seated. Adelaide noticed she was wearing the same clothes as yesterday. She didn't see them at first.

"Hey, Phin, right?" Adelaide asked, getting her attention. The girl looked up, surprised anyone was talking to her. Adelaide felt empathetic for the girl. She had been in her position before and luckily enough for her, Ned and Peter had helped her fit in.

"Yeah," she said.

"I'm Adelaide," she smiled.

"I'm Peter," he said. Phin looked between the two of them and nodded instead of saying something in reply.

"Um, do you...maybe wanna come sit with us?" Adelaide asked, gesturing to the table where Ned and Vivian were sitting. Phin glanced at them. She looked like she wanted to say yes.

"I'm good, thanks," she mumbled, staring down at her tray again. Adelaide glanced at her boyfriend. He just shrugged.

"Oh, okay. Well, if you ever wanna sit with us, there's plenty of empty seats," she said. Phin nodded, still staring at her plate. "See you."

She half-heartedly lifted her hand in what Adelaide thought was a wave. Frowning, she and Peter both slowly walked back to their table. They didn't want to make it obvious that they were thinking about her so when they got back to the table, they just changed the topic and pushed aside the strange encounter.

Adelaide thought she was probably just very shy. Peter thought she had an ulterior motive, but then he glanced at his girlfriend across the table who was laughing at something Ned said and he realized that he was just being paranoid. After what had happened to her in that warehouse, he had been suspicious of everyone lately. It was exhausting but he couldn't help it— he wanted to protect Ada from ending up in another situation like that again. When she caught him staring, he just smiled.

However, when Peter looked over at that table again, it was empty.

—————

Phin pulled her hood over her head to try to draw less attention to herself.

There were a lot of people on the bus with her, even at this hour in the evening. Most of them were by themselves, just like her, but there were a few who came with children. Phin stared at the children playing with their toys in their lap and wondered why anyone thought it would be okay to bring them here.

Her gaze drifted out to the window. The scene was breathtaking. She wasn't used to seeing a concrete jungle when she looked out a window. But here, with the sun setting past the New York skyline, she almost felt like a tourist. Though she was far from it. She kept looking outside the window until she saw the razor wires and jutting walls blocking her panoramic view of the city.

They were here.

Riker's Island, home to 10,000 inmates.

With a sigh, she pulled her headphones out of her ears and stuffed them into the pockets of her hoodie before following the crowd of people stepping off the bus. A man emerged onto the platform and everyone fell silent.

"Please make sure you don't leave any personal belongings on the bus. We will not be held responsible for lost items," he said. His voice was heavy, like a barrow of coal. Phin decided to stay cautious of him. "Follow me."

The group followed him into the nearest building and once inside, they were asked to form a line. She was somewhere in the middle. Inside, there were many more men like the one who had greeted them. They looked like soldiers. Phin eyed the guns on their holsters. She wondered what constituted as a reason to use them. She imagined it wasn't much, but she'd rather not find out.

"Name?" a lady said and Phin realized she was already at the front of the line.

"Phin Mason," she said. The lady typed it into her computer. It looked old, maybe something from '07. Phin thought it was due for an upgrade. She couldn't imagine how slowly it processed and frankly, she didn't even want to think about the amount of RAM it had or the processor chip inside.

"Identification?" the lady asked. Phin dug into the front pocket of her hoodie, pulling out her headphones and then her passport. Then she stuffed the headphones back in and handed the passport to the lady. She read it, scanned it, and then handed it back.

"Proceed to the next line," she said and she was done talking to her, her eyes already on the next person in line. Phin glanced behind herself to see a man who looked homeless. He had a silver tooth. She hurried to the next line before he saw her staring and decided to do something about it.

As they progressed through the lines, the correction officers made her submit her ID and her leather jacket and phone and headphones all into a locker. She was forced through three different metal detectors before they led her to a waiting room. It was cold in the room and Phin nervously tapped her foot against the floor as she waited. The guard standing by the door glared at her. She stopped.

"Phin Mason," a correction officer said, entering the room. She stood up and followed her down the dark, metallic hallways. She wondered if the smell came from the rust or blood. She shuddered, though her heart was pounding wildly with anticipation.

The officer stopped at a heavy metal door and opened it for her. She walked past her and into the relatively dim room. There were a few other people there, visitors like her. They were sitting in chairs, holding phones up to their ears as they talked to an inmate doing the same on the other side of the plexiglass.

Then Phin saw him. The dark-skinned man in an orange jumpsuit.

She swore she felt a few hundred pounds lighter just seeing his face. She walked over to the chair in front of his window and sat down. He gave her a warm smile. She picked up the phone, holding it up to her ear.

"Hey, gumdrop," he greeted. She smiled for the first time in over a week.

"Hey Uncle Rick," she said quietly into the phone, "How are you?"

"Me? Oh, well I'm doing fantastic. The food here is great, though they don't make those mashed potatoes quite like you do, Phin," he joked.

"They were pretty special," she agreed. Her uncle smiled at her.

"So how's the transfer? How's Midtown? You make any friends yet, kid?" he asked eagerly. She studied his dark brown eyes for a moment. She knew she was avoiding the elephant in the room for as long as he could. Thinking about his question, her mind drifted back to earlier this afternoon when Adelaide and her friend had approached her.

"Lots," she lied instead. He smiled proudly.

"That's great to hear, gumdrop." Phin thought about the permission slip that she had stuffed deep into her backpack. There was no way any one of these officers would hand her uncle a pen to let him sign.

"It feels really good to see you," she said quietly, "I miss you."

"I miss you more, kid," he said with half a smile, "This is just how things are now."

"For the next three years," she sighed. He nodded.

"For the next three years," he agreed, "You'll be in college by then." Phin didn't reply to that. She had no intentions of going to college, but she didn't want to tell him that. He seemed to read the expression on her face. "You're a good kid, Phin. Don't throw your life away like I did, alright?"

"You didn't throw your life away," she said, bitter, "You worked hard at that job every day for seven years. I grew up watching you."

"Life doesn't always turn out the way you expect it to," he said tiredly.

"So what? I should go around expecting everyone I know to stab me in the back?" she snapped. He gave her a look. She was a smart kid, but her temper always ran a little hot like her old man's used to.

"That's not what I said and you know it," he said pointedly. Phin squared her jaw.

"That's the thing, Uncle Rick, I know everything that happened and it doesn't make a difference because nothing I do is gonna get you out of this hellhole for at least three years," she said, trying to keep her anger at bay. She could feel the familiar emotion starting to cloud her thoughts.

"It's not your responsibility to get me out of here," he said sternly, "Listen to me, kid. You will not do anything at all. This is my problem, I'm handling it."

"By giving up?"

"By riding it out!" he snapped and then sighed, "Promise me, Phin. Promise me you won't do something stupid."

She looked into his tired eyes and sighed, looking away.

"I promise," she mumbled reluctantly.

"Thank you," he said, relaxing a bit, "This is our life now. The sooner we accept it, the faster it will all be over."

But Phin was far from accepting it.

—————

Being without a legal guardian meant she would be forced into a care facility with other kids like her.

Luckily, Phin had sidestepped that. By forging the false identity of a guardian that didn't exist, she was able to get enough fake documentation to rent an apartment under his name. She also had her 'legal guardian' enroll her into Midtown and she was the one who forged his signature on her permission slip. It was a delicate lie, but she needed it to hold long enough to solve her problem.

Being a sixteen-year-old meant she had limited options. Not to mention that she was from Jersey so the city itself was a mystery to her. She didn't know anyone here nor did she trust anyone here. She was a deer in sitting in the middle of a pack of lions, just waiting to be devoured.

The sun had set by the time Phin successfully made it back to her apartment. If she could even call it that. It was the size of a classroom, maybe even smaller.

With a tired sigh, she tossed her backpack by the door and crashed onto the mattress on the floor— she refused to call it her bed. The mattress had come with the apartment and she didn't trust it to be very clean so she threw a few of her clothes over it and rolled up her towel to use as a pillow.

Phin closed her eyes.

"STOP!" she screamed desperately, "Where are you taking him!"

"Phin!" her uncle shouted. He stopped struggling against the hold of the officers to look his sobbing niece in the eye. He balled his hands into fists. He couldn't believe the son of a bitch had let this scene unfold right in his home. After working for him for so long, Rick thought that he would have had enough decency to have him arrested where his niece wouldn't have to witness it.

"L-Listen to me, gumdrop," he said gently and she stopped trying to pull the officers off of him by their arms. She cried.

"Please," she sobbed.

"Everything's gonna be okay," he said, forcing a smile for her. Sobbing, Phin threw her arms around him, sobbing into his jacket. The officers didn't let go of his arms long enough for him to hug her back. He buried his face into her shoulder and very quietly whispered into her ear,

"Whatever you do, don't let him take you too," he warned.

And then he was whisked away by the New Jersey Police Department's officers, leaving Phin Mason all alone in their apartment, crying by the front door.

Phin loved her uncle and she wasn't the only one who knew he had been wrongfully imprisoned for something his boss had done. She knew that she was too small to make him pay for what he did to his uncle-- she might have been vengeful, but she wasn't stupid.

Phin just wanted her uncle out of jail.

Even if it was a suicide mission.

—————

Adelaide was staring at the file in her hands. It was the file about her brother that she'd stolen from SHIELD when she was there stealing for Lukov a few months ago.

She had read it forwards and backwards, memorized it even. All there was was a bunch of unsuccessful trials and then a final trial that resulted in the termination of the project entirely. There was a picture of him, but he looked so young and sickly, she couldn't imagine how he looked now.

She had spent hours staring at his face, trying to think if he looked more like their mother or their father. Sometimes, she would be sitting there, doing nothing and she'd suddenly remember that she had a brother and her chest would feel warm and fuzzy from the excitement of having actual living family.

Then she'd remember that he could very possibly be dead. Happy had said after all that he had dropped off the grid over five years ago.

"Please tell me come bearing good news," she told Happy as soon as he entered the penthouse. He sighed, taking his time to walk over to where she was sitting on the sofa in the living room and sat down beside her.

"Well, I hit every green light on the way here," he said and she gave him a look.

"Happs," she said, "I'm dying over here."

"Look, I talked to my PI and he's been looking into it himself, but the only thing he learned just makes things more confusing," Happy said. She frowned.

"What? What did he learn? Is my brother alive?"

"Well...the thing is, it's like he doesn't exist before and after that picture of him was taken," he said, "There's no trail of him being alive before that picture and after that picture was taken, he's back to not existing."

That made no sense to Adelaide. How could someone only exist for one picture? In all these years? Unless...

"He wanted that picture of him to be taken," she said, staring at the ground. Her eyes snapped up to look at Happy. "Maybe he wanted me to find him."

Happy winced, "I know you're excited, and you have every right to be, but I don't want to see you getting hurt if this doesn't lead to anything good. You've been hurt too many times before."

Adelaide didn't want to believe him. Too many people had hurt her in her lifetime. She couldn't beat her brother being one of them. No, she had to have hope that her life was destined to turn around at some point. If she couldn't trust her brother to not hurt her, who could she trust?

"I really want this to happen," she said tiredly to the man, "I need my brother to be alive."

Happy squeezed her shoulder.

"We'll keep looking," he said firmly, "We will find him."

If only they knew that some things were better hidden and buried deep in the past.

—————

A/N: oh, man i can't wait for her brother to show up in the story. things are going to be thrown into chaos

also, i feel like i should point out that i have not played the new spiderman game so please no spoilers and that also means that phin's character is entirely unrelated to the game, meaning that she is not technically the tinkerer and most things are just going to be different to fit this story

the past couple weeks have been so hectic i am desperately looking forward to fall break 😭 i'm planning on going back home but imma be honest i love it here so much that i lowkey don't wanna go back home lol

anyway, hope your life is going great too, thank you for being patient with me and thank you for reading :)

question: any theories about her brother?

see you guys next weeeeek 💛

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