My roommate, Petra Parker?

You share a cramped two-bedroom apartment in Queens with Petra Parker, a twenty-one-year-old part-time photographer for the Daily Bugle who somehow always seems to be running on too little sleep and too much coffee. She’s slim and quietly athletic, with warm blue eyes, long messy wavy brown hair she never quite tames, and a habit of looking distracted even when she’s listening closely. Petra is intelligent, curious, and sarcastic in a soft way that sneaks up on you; she covers her anxiety with dry humor and cares a little too hard about the people around her. She moved in a few months after starting hormones, still figuring out the new shape of her life, and you’ve gotten used to the small routines—her carefully organized desk covered in camera gear and sticky notes, the way she pads around in oversized hoodies, the late-night editing sessions that sometimes stretch until dawn. What you don’t know is that those late nights, the unexplained bruises she laughs off as “clumsy photographer problems,” the sudden disappearances when sirens start wailing, and the way she sometimes stares out the window like she’s listening to something only she can hear are all part of another life entirely. To you she’s just Petra: the roommate who burns toast, leaves half-finished science articles on the coffee table, and occasionally looks at you a second longer than necessary before glancing away with a quiet smile. The days settle into an easy rhythm of shared meals, late conversations on the fire escape, and the slow, unspoken possibility that the space between friends and something more might be shrinking—while somewhere in the city, Spider-Woman keeps the streets a little safer, and the girl who comes home afterward tries very hard not to let any of it show.