Shimmering Spiderby Sense of HumorChaptersWhere the fun all began!Page 2Page 3Job OfferLoose Lips make PartnershipsDawn of a sidekickSucessWhere the fun all began!Author's Note Hey again, Happy! :-D Just checking in again for another update on my next mission with Mr.Stark, or anyone else in particular. Hope to hear from you soon! This is Peter. ... Parker. PETER PARKER. Monday, September 4th-8:43AM Where the fun all began! Now finished with his 349th message, Peter hit the send button lazily. Then, he scrolled upwards to view the 348 other messages that he'd taken great time and effort to create for Happy,letting him know about quitting band practice or getting school holidays that gave him off time for more super hero work.Happy must be in some pretty deep consideration about all the information Peter gave him, because he hadn't heard from the particularly unhappy butler-dude since the ride home from Germany. Patience wasn't Peter's strong suit, but he knew he couldn't do much about the lack of development over the phone. He couldnt just call up Happy and be like 'yo man, wheres my next mission at?' or do something stupid like that. Peter even tried false alarming Happy once by texting about Ultron's return or aliens in disguise. Nothing--not a single blasted emoji was seen that day. But, Peter digressed in time to dodge the Principal and his starbucks mocha. "Let's keep our heads up, Mr. Parker." The middle aged man advised as he began to disappear into the sea of bodies. "You know, so we can see what's in front of us?" Peter half smiled and nodded, even though the Principal was very unlikely to turn around and see that to begin with. "Yeah. Good idea, sir." The sophomore shuffled down the hallway with enough agility to skirt past a portion of his innumerable peers. The journey to his locker was often traveling like this, so it wasn't that difficult to steer around those that barely noticed him to begin with. It was all a matter of chance, if one looked at it close enough; it was a gamble to guess where Sarah or Bill would be chatting when you're looking at the ground, or where Jim and Andrea would sucking each other's lips off for that matter. Today was a show and tell day for most of them too, so ducking was something he had to get used to until he finally reached his locker. It was only a matter of time before his subconscious wandered through his itinerary for the day, the list somewhere in between long and short in his mind. First there was Chemistry, then a few insignificant classes, lunch, two more periods that lived only to waste his time and then he had a half hour's worth of "Spidering" to do. But that last part could be cut short due to homework over the first part. And then there was the constant threat of Flash actually being at school today to call him "Penis Parker" for the 9,000th time and give everyone something to laugh about for a few seconds. Oh and the Web fluid--he almost forgot that! He was running low on the stuff and needed a new batch. Peter noted to himself mentally that he needed to mix up at least a pound of it to last him a whole month and not a whole week. He fished around at the bottom of his locker for the the right notebook that contained his web fluid formula and cautiously glanced over his shoulders to make sure no one was causally glancing at it. No one ever was, or had noticed any proof of his other life for 8 months now...but one couldn't be too prideful in their sneakiness. Pride goeth before a fall, as his Aunt usually said. Or...was it, cometh? Yeah. That was it. Cometh. Probably. When Peter shut his locker door, a certain...weird acquaintance of his was there to give him his daily heart attack. Michelle raised her eyebrow at him as he visibly flinched and then offered her a sneering look of disbelief. "You're in front of my locker, Peter." "Would it kill you to just..." Peter stared dumbly at the tan-skinned girl lightly pushing him back and stooping down to the locker beneath his own. His arms sarcastically flopped in the air for a moment. "Yeah. Okay. No need to ask me to move. Just...constantly be weird. And rude. " Her messy brown bub bobbed slightly when she stood up after closing the locker again. "So, you're neither of those things?" She made some kind of indescribable face at him that seemed insulting all its own. "You were staring off into space after you pulled out that notebook. Just thought I'd wait a for a second to see if you'd drool or do something else mildly stupid." "...I think you'd make a great stalker, Michelle." Peter patted her shoulder with the most reassuring smile he could muster at the moment. "I can see you having a great future in it. Maybe you can make your own industry off of it. Creeps Inc., they'll call it." Michelle finally rolled her eyes--why didn't she do that earlier? "Please don't try your new comedy act on the new kid when he or she shows up. " "Uh...what?" "Oh, right. Mr.Conners never told rest of the class. " She shrugged as she went into detail about her statement, body in preparation to leave. "We're supposed to be getting a 'new student' in the school. Only way he knows this is because their mom is the owner of a pretty decent phone business. Crystal Empire, I think." Peter scrunched his nose. "Crystal Empire? I thought that was just a toothpaste company!" Michelle shrugged and began to walk off into the crowded areas of the hallways, finally shrinking away from his sight as the bell rang and the movement of students became became even more frequent--er, frantic. Peter hummed in thought over having some really rich classmate; he certainly wasn't opposed to that. Most people didn't differ to him whether they were rich or not, and he wasn't the kind of guy who tried being friends with someone just for money. Still...it wasn't his fault if he got money in the end. After all, ingredients for Web fluid didn't grow on trees. So long as they weren't the cliche, bossy, high-and-mighty type of people--he could like them.Or Stark-centric. ________________________~________________________ ONE HOUR EARLIER: ________________________~________________________ Samantha raised her finger boredly, orchaestrating the cacophony of car horns since she couldn't hear her own music over the sound of them. Without much interest, she directed the timing of the truck's tenor blasts and then mixed mini-cooper's high pitched blaring with the sound of a few angry drivers they were close enough to hear. Narrating the whole scene of Symphony was a particularly close voice in the background, talking to her phone without much notice of her child. "No, it's not my fault that this traffic just appeared...Yes, I'm almost out of it. For the twelfth time, no! I can't just immediately drive over!" Celest Summers continued to argue with whoever was on the other end of the phone, her tone as frustrated as usual. Though with the traffic and the individual on the other end of the phone, it was hard to tell what was annoying her more. "Because I have to drop my daughter off at school. You're sure he can't just bump up the meeting to nine?...well, make up something. Just say I'm in traffic--I am, technically." Sam shifted her attention away from that and focused it on the strange vibrations that ran through the ground beneath the car tires. Oh right; the subway trains in New York ran endlessly, something she'd have to get used to as a method of getting to school. After she got used to her new school...and after she got used to the apartment she was supposed to call home for now. It's living space was three times as cramped as the comfortable home she had in Oregon--the walls were thin enough to hear someone three blocks away and the living room was merged with the kitchen. Ironically, her mom being a CEO should have gotten them something better to live in, but it was exactly her fault that they had to move all the way out to New York in the first place. Sal could only pick out snippets of detail from the reason she was punished, and it had something to do with acquiring an important building somewhere near Queens. "No. You're going to stick with that and that's final. I'll talk with you later." With the phone no longer distracting her, the car soon filled with the tension of a conversation on the horizon. They hadn't talked since last night, excluding the unnoticeable 'good morning' or two. Maybe if she kept staring out the window, Sam might be able to completely avoid any-- "Sorry i couldn't get any breakfast made before we left. I know how bad it is to go to school on an empty stomach..." Sam kept up her silence with fading hope, and Celest briefly glanced at her. "This is the part where you say something like...'It'll be bad if I go to school altogether.' Or just the usual sigh of exasperation." "Is this the part where I'm supposed to laugh and be happy all of a sudden?" The teen sighed into the window, still not turning to face her mother. Celest's small smile fell dramatically after that remark. "...Well, I see that you're still a little peeved about all this. Still, I'm not sure what pouting about it is going to do. Didn't you always complain that you hated the school back there? No one you could really talk to?" "I got used to hating it, and then it wasn't that bad anymore. And so what?" She responded incredulously and frowned when they reached the end of traffic, finally turning onto the street that would lead them to Midtown High. "Not gonna make friends here and no one's gonna do the same with me." "Well, I don't expect you to make friends for once, as much as I want you to. If you could, that'd be great...and surprising. But I'm not giving you the 'make new friends speech.' I've been given it more than once. " Celest sighed down at her phone,still thinking about her phone call prior to the end of traffic. The car pulled into the carpool, where a few other cars were sitting patiently in front of the school's main doors. " I know I definitely lack in friends...especially now that I'm the one who's everyone's boss. " Sam squinted at her. "But you haven't had this position for a full week." "Yep. Enemies can appear anywhere. Especially when you start doing some amazing things." Celest remarked with a tired shrug and leaned forward to peck her daughter's forehead. Said daughter sighed and gathered the backpack from between her calves, placing it's massive weight on her lap. " Now go and make some amazing grades in...It's barely the end of September." Samantha was almost out of the car when she said that, and the abrupt statement made her turn around sharply. "...yeah. So?" "What's with the gloves?" Samantha casually tucked a few strands of her red hair behind an ear. "Uh, just wanted to. It looks cool. See you later.' With an official goodbye from her mom, the girl's smile dropped slowly as her ride disappeared from view. She looked down at her glove and peeled away the wrist opening to see that the skin of her palm was still glowing--brighter than yesterday. She swallowed anxiously and readjusted the glove; it'd go away soon enough. She didn't need to think about it now, of all times. ________________________~________________________ Chemistry at last. It literally felt like he'd never get to this class and, more importantly, get the instruments he usually used to brew up some more web fluid. To make matters better, Mr. Conners was missing and some really unobservant substitute teacher was bringing everyone through a simple expirement with fire. Peter adjusted his seat to make leaning down to his secret lab (which was just a drawer embedded in the side of the lab station) easy for him, grinning like a mad scientist already. Maybe this time I'll make it last longer. Or delay the hardening process when it shoots out... "Use the bunsen burner in your expirement, and make sure the nozzle is secured. " The substitute read word for word what instructions were left for him. It was basically a distant hum in the back of Peter's mind as he snuck out two pitchers of corn syrup from the lower cupboard at the back of the room. It was going to be part of an expirement to make some kind of food, but surely Mr.Conners wouldn't care about a pitcher of his being a little...empty--at least not for a few days. "Then, align the washer above..." "Sir? We have the instruction packet already." Peter recognized the voice of Betty Brant interrupting him."We can probably read it from here." Aside from a grumbling sound, the substitute shut up and resigned himself to the teacher's desk where he sat there and read an incredibly thick book. Peter finished pouring the last pound of corn syrup and went on to adding in the armful of liquid ingredients to the mix, causing the clear substance in the giant beaker to fizz but otherwise remain still. Just the addition of two eggs remained, and then a constant stir to keep it from hardening too early. The boy reached for his backpack, only to pause and stare as the door opened to the classroom. The girl was so unfamiliar to that he continued to stare, as did others in the classroom when they noticed her. Her hair, a cross between straight and bushy, was bright with thick zig zags of gold slicing through in a coordinated pattern. The long ends cascaded above her long sleeved purple shirt and black jean pants, doing little to hide the large backpack or her hands...covered with fingerless gloves. She was attractive (if Peter wasn't lying to himself, he'd admit that most girls at his school were attractive), but clearly in no condition to even be looked at. She held out a pass to the substitute wordlessly, and that's when it him. This was who Michelle was referring to earlier: Funny, since he wouldn't have expected someone with hair like hers to be the daughter of a CEO...or a high school student. He regarded the girl between efforts to quietly crack his eggs and get his yolk into the beaker without being caught, while the girl only roamed part or the classroom on a mission to find a seat. A good look told Peter that the seat next to him was open, but he knew how girls worked with him and seats. If he pointed out a seat next to him, they'd think he was some desperate idiot or something. He settled for not saying a word and mixing his concoction like he was supposed to do. He swashed the half liquid/solid stuff up in a circular motion and pulled up the mixer to see that it was all still too liquidy. A bit more air exposure and then more mixing oughtta do the trick. "No one's sitting here, right?" He jolted in surprise and whirled around to see the new girl looking equally startled, probably because of his reaction. Had he been too immersed in something again? "Well?" "Oh right. I mean, no. No. No one's sitting there." The girl sat down slowly as if she was regretting to choose to be right next to him, blue eyes warily scanning him up and down. "What's the matter?" Peter became acutely aware of just how long he'd been staring at the girl, and he turned away with a soft cough. "Never seen a girl before?" Like he'd never heard that one before. Secretly mixing up the web fluid just out of her eyesight, Peter shook his head. "Not with that hairstyle, no. How'd you dye it like that?" "This is natural." She said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "That's natural...?! Did you have a ketchup and mustard accident when you were little?" Peter shook his head--bad Spidey, wisecracking tendencies. "No. Wait. Sorry. That's... That was incredibly rude of me. I like it. I really do. It's, uh--whats the word?" "That's not the first time I've heard that joke. Just drop it." She dug around in her backpack for something. "Do new students have to do anything on the first day?" He shrugged, trying to think about the day he moved into this strange school. "Mr.Conners won't make you do anything until at least day three. He wants to meet all students personally, and ironically he's not here today." He paused, regarded the condition of his web fluid and then turned back to the girl. "I'm Peter, by the way. Peter Parker." She didn't respond to that, instead she chose to turn on her phone and move straight to her photos app. She had a picture of her school day schedule saved, it seemed. The boy pointed at her phone with a nod. "Oh yeah, your mom's the owner of that Crystal phone company thing, right?" The girl stared at him after a long moment of tensing up. "How do you know that?" "I know everything about you..." Peter said as ominously as possible, and when she narrowed her eyes, he laughed. "Hey, just kidding! A friend of mine just told me that Mr.Conners knew who you were. How does the phone thing work for you, since she owns everything? Is it free for you, or...?" He left that 'or' at the end to coax her, but she just made a straight line with her lips and tried not to notice him. His continued hand motions telling her answer chipped away at her until her expression softened ever so slightly. "I guess you won't shut up, huh?" "This is my least talkative day." She sighed and said: "Yes, its free. The phone bill, any app related to the brand that I buy is free too." "So does her stuff extend to tablets or laptops too? Making them, I mean." Peter said curiously. "Yes. Yes it does." A pause, then she slightly shifted her body to face him. It was clearly reluctant on her part, but it felt as if there was something she needed to say. "Can I ask you a question?" "Sure." "What are you mixing in that beaker?" His skin was sucked of all color in that instant, and he stopped stirring. When did she notice that? "Uh, what Bea..." He suddenly got an idea, pulling the beaker up on the table to continue stirring it. "Oh! You mean this beaker. This is to help my friend with a science project he's doing over spiders. I'm just making him this cool mixture he can use to weave a web on his poster board. He's got a thing for the way a presentation goes." The girl raised an eyebrow and looked at the beaker. "Well, I hope you want it to be watery and acidic and messy, because you've added too many pints of chlorine enzymes." He shrank back, eyes too wide to even dare blinking at her. He looked from the beaker to her and them back to the beaker with worry. "I did?" He inspected the mixer when he pulled it up from the white mass. He must've messed up somewhere in the process, or he misread the formula again. "Yes. See that lack of grey spots?" She pointed at what he had displayed to their eyes, the comers of her lips lifting into something of a smirk. " That's not a good a sign. Adding in something basic and powdery should cancel enough of the enzymes to work out for you friend." "Um...I..." Peter began. "Oh." She held out a gloved hand to him, the smirk on her face turning up more. She was clearly enjoying this. A lot. " I'm Samantha Summers." He half heartedly grasped her hand and didn't notice the oddly warm feel of her palm. Peter wished he could say that he wasn't a little jealous or surprised about her high level of intelligence, but how could anyone speak after something like that happened? He looked down at his beaker of approaching, acidic doom and sighed at her. "Nice to meet you." Page 2Samantha didn't expect her day at school to turn out so...satisfying, by fifth period no less. She still didn't like moving or this school in particular, but there were some pretty nice points in the day. Like the fact that no one excluding the teachers had said much to her, leaving her alone and not bringing up the subject of her gloves. There was this one boy, Pete or something; he was the only one to say anything other than hi, but he was...clearly one of the weirder students. Possibly one of the one of the smarter ones too, until she wowed him with a brief suggestion in Chemistry. Man, from the look on his face, she guessed that no one could improve on whatever formulas he thought up. She hadn't had a sense of gratification like this back in Westview, even if this was a small thing. And, as much she hated to say it...he was an okay guy. She didn't warm up to him entirely, but at least the first person she'd really talked to was nice. He was easy enough to conversate with and from the looks of it, wasn't too far down on the social scale to be laughed at by everyone in the school. If her mom asked her about any new friends, then Samantha could at least say she'd met a nerd(ish) kid. But since she was kinda smarter than him...that made her nerd(ish) and a hypocrite at the same time. Oh well. Now it was 7th period: lunch to be specific. Sam took notice of most of her peers choosing to sit down before joining into a huge line for lunch, leaving their backpacks behind to mark their eating territory. It gave her ample time to be one of the first in line, but also enough to be stared at by a few guys and girls. She didn't know what they could be thinking of her, but it would be amazing if they didn't stare at her hair like she was Medusa. It couldn't be that abnormal for everyone to whisper about it or exchanges glances. The girl payed no more attention to them, picking up a chicken sandwich box and examining the box. "Well...at least it looks edible." She shrugged before picking up a small cart of fries and a regular milk carton. Entering her lunch number was a small difficulty; it would take a while before she could fully memorize it, and until then she kept it as a picture on her phone. The real problem came afterwards, ensuing her leave of the lunch line altogether... Finding a lunch table. "...Where did everyone come from?" She muttered in exasperation as she walked and stared at the massive sea of bodies. Countless students overcrowding the seats to be with friends and often yelling across the table just to talk to other friends,who were doing the exact same thing in another direction. She was sure more than half of them already had lunch in another period! Where was she supposed to sit now, when there were enough adolescents here to block an entire table from view? The search took her down one row to the farthest wall, but didn't provide any results other than a few stares and at least one individual stifling a laugh. Frustration building within her, Samantha leaned against the wall and took another wide scan of the cafeteria. Asking any of the rude students for a spot was out of the question. Moving into a classroom wasn't possible either. Maybe sitting against the wall wouldn't be a bad idea; it wasn't against school rules and there wasn't anyplace else to sit. The girl sighed,set her non-edible items down next to her feet and jumped ten feet out of her skin when a girl seemed to appear out of thin air next to her. "Hi." The girl scratched her messy, dark brown hair and leaned against the wall. Her voice was unbelievably wry and bored, very similar to her own expression. "Peter begged me to get you to sit with us at our table...You are the new girl, right?" "Er, Yeah." Sam blinked rapidly, casting a look down at the girl's boots and noting how noisy they looked. Was she a ninja? "I'm her. I mean--I'm new." "Alright. Come on, then." She said that briefly, and left Sam behind without really waiting to see if she would follow. Perplexed and left with no other choice, the partially red-haired girl slowly followed her strange quarry all the way to the end of the left side of the cafeteria. A lone table sat there, the only occupant at the moment being Peter, who was scrolling through something very lengthy on his phone. The boy took notice of her quickly and made a face stuck between a full smile and nothing. "Hey again. I know this isn't the best place to sit down, but it's better than the floor, right?" "The floor doesn't have losers," The girl deadpanned and sat, at a distance, next to him. " like you." Samantha pursed her lips. "If this table is for losers, why are you here?" "No friends. Same as you, if you aren't counting Petey here." The girl explained with the same level of boredom in her voice, though taking a bite of one of her steak fingers seemed to lighten her expression. So much so that Samantha was starting to regret not getting a few of those when she had the chance. "He said your name was Samantha, right? I'm Michelle." "Hmm. I don't suppose I'm not the only other one that sits here...?" "Until my friend gets back from being sick, you are." Peter said. "Speaking of being places, I never really asked about where you came from. Care to share?" The girl thought over it for a long moment, mostly to provide time for her to eat. "Oregon." Michelle actually made a different face; halfway surprised. "You came all the way from Oregon?" "Mmm-hmm." Sam couldn't help but vent just slightly since she asked the question. It felt pretty good to do just that. "My mom says it's for business and because of the building she bought down here. Thanks to its importance and popularity here, she needs to be in New York and of course...I'm dragged along for the ride. The building is so big, they're barely halfway done moving their things out of it!" "What building is that?" Peter asked. "Huh? Oh, I don't know. I wasn't really paying attention to that when she abruptly said we were moving. Anyways, we're not even in a house yet. Just some apartment in Queens, really small and not that much space." She groaned semi-loudly and let her head fall backwards in the process. "It is a complete nightmare. This school has been the only break for me, and even this place is bad." "Has anyone been throwing pick-up lines at you?" The only boy at the table asked in a mock quizzical way. "I know I'd be done with the school if that happened." Samantha snorted, but then stopped herself with a lingering smile. He was definitely hard not to smile at, and it was hard to imagine how he was at this table in the first in the first place. Not to say Michelle was a loser; she really wasn't. "No, but...ugh! Everyone has been staring at my hair all day today, like it's gonna leap off my scalp and strangle someone." "It looks like bacon to me. " Michelle shrugged. "But really cool bacon. The kind to make people jealous, because their bacon isn't as good as yours." "...Thanks. I guess." "So no one has commented on your hair or the gloves?" Peter pointed with a narrowed eye and a raised eyebrow. "If so, let me be the first to ask...what's up with that?" Samantha snuck down a swallow and subconsciously caused her hands to clasp together. The heat in her palms had grown larger by now, enough to make the wool of her gloves feel weird and somewhat cooked. Sh!t; she should've played attention to it throughout the day--questions would rise if her hands suddenly caught fire or smelled like smoke. "Um, it's a really bad skin rash. It's super big and its on my palms and the back of my hands." "Really?" Michelle's voice tilted with interest as her hand reached forward, plucking at the wrist of the glove. "Let me see. Is it--" "No!" Samantha pulled her hands into her lap abruptly and finished. "I'm...uh... really conscious about it and I don't want anyone to see it. Plus it gets super itchy when exposed to air and it turns red and stuff. My doctor said it might be contagious too, so..yep." "Ew." To her relief, the girl didn't pry any further and Peter didn't do much more than apprehensively stare at her. "So, either of you know where Spanish 1 is for Misteeeeer...Jackson? His room number is blurred out on the picture for some reason." Peter piped up almost immediately. "Room 512. I have him next period, funny enough...or, I would have him. I get to leave a little early because of my job." "He's got a job as Tony Stark's intern." Michelle added to explain things, while Peter tried not to look too proud of himself. "I guess he goes up in that tower everyday to build suits and fight with the Avengers and stuff." The redhead gave him a lopsided smirk. "Oh really? Think you could lend me an Iron Man suit sometime?" "Ha Ha. I just do intern work. A whole lot of it. " He stated with a satisfied smirk thrown at Samantha. "But I tell ya...it's a really fun job." "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~HAAAAAAAAAH!" Spider-man landed on side of the building with no trouble, his fingertips slowing his descent down the glass side to a halt in seconds. After those few seconds, he shot up into the air again and set his white-lensed eyes on a stone gargoyle nearby. His webshooter caused a thick white rope to shoot out like a bullet, splatting onto the face of the ornament and remaining strong as he swung his weight forward on it. Letting go of the webline sent him flying through the air again--high enough to disturb a flock of pigeons and earn another whooping laugh from him. Peter was always reminded of how much fun web-swinging was when he aimed his wrist. The way the wind roared past him when he gained speed, the sudden drop when gravity caught up to him, the height records he broke all the time--it was all an exhilarating feeling that couldn't be beat by anything else. And the best part? This wasn't even the highlight of the job. His lenses narrowed at the ground and gave him brilliant binocular vision; the streets suddenly looked like he was inches from it, as if he were standing on the ground amongst the sea of people and cars.He could see a guy walking a pretty big Labrador, going past a woman with a very expensive looking business suit, who dodged a collision with an old lady, who just got her purse snatched by another dude, who walked past a kid and his...wait a second. Spider-man began to swing in the man's direction and cursed under his breath when he disappeared around the corner of the sidewalk--This guy must've done some planning for this. Of course, if Peter were a thief, he'd want to have a means of evading Spider-man before he even saw him. When the webhead finally perched on the edge of the building, he heard an engine rev into life and saw the purse snatcher burst out of the alleyway at the back of the building. Nearby civilians shrieked and dodged the car as best they could, some of them coming dangerously close to being clipped. Peter managed to yank them out of the way while an entertained look spread underneath his mask. "A guy with backup plans? This is gonna be great." He used a webline to catapult himself at quick speeds toward the car while the man swerved around the corner of a building at the end of the street. Peter tapped on his window to get his attention. "Hey! Hang on! I think you're my uber!" The car veered towards the left in an effort to brush him off with a lamppost, allowing it to get ahead of him as he had to dodge the metal. He used a webline to try propelling himself at the back of the car again, but his highly perceptive eyes discovered that the car was about to hit a line of people crossing the street. Aw, Sh#t! Okay, hang on... Spider-man pressed a finger at the nozzle of his webshooter, angling it so that several strands of webbing latched onto the shoulders of the civilians. He lept a few feet ahead of the car and used a somersault to help yank everyone high enough to avoid a head-on collision, earning a chorus of screams for his efforts. Just seconds before he landed on the street, his aim created a giant net that caught everyone safely before they were to land in a painful way. It actually impressed himself, if he were honest. "Everyone okay up there?" He called aloud while the civilians tried to make sense of what happened. Tire screeching drew his attention once more. "Uh, okay. Just climb down from the left! Stay safe! No need to thank me!" The chase resumed once again, but the thief seemed to pick up on Peter's need to keep people out of the way and immediately targeted the sidewalks to slow him down more. The boy gave a frustrated growl at having to leap ahead several times and pull people out of his destructive path. He would have at least attempted to stop the car with his bare hands, but the screaming lady or dude in front always took up that time. He was huffing and puffing after a full minute, and admittedly started to lose track of the car after the seventeenth citizen he rescued. But after making a specific turn, the car discovered that there weren't any bodies to threaten or any pets to distract the vigilante with. Finally. Peter smirked underneath the mask. Now I can put the breaks on--wha?! Thirty feet ahead of the speeding car was a lone figure, crossing the street and busying themselves with their hands for some reason. When his lenses narrowed, he could recognize the figure as Samantha, the girl from school. The thief seemed to notice her too, bexcuse the car lurched forward at a faster speed. Peter gasped as he realized he was too far back to pull her out of the way, and he frantically shot a Web line at the bumper on the vehicle. The chappy thing fell off and almost smacked him in the head. "HEY!" He shouted at the top of his lungs and tried shooting another line. "WATCH OUT! GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Things were a blur after he yelled that-- in a span of four seconds Samantha looked up in fear to see the car, the car came within a couple of feet of her and then she held up her arms with a shriek. Then there was a blinding orange light, then a lazer sound and the next thing he knew, the car was flipping up in the air--twenty feet or more-- and was hurting down onto an oncoming car. Spider-man's wrist propelled him forward in time to spray another web-net that caught the car inches from smashing the roof of the other car. The woman inside the latter sighed in relief, and her children waved to the vigilante eagerly. After waving back, Peter tore off the driver's door of the Thief. "Geez, dude! You suck at driving! I gotta find your driving instructor so I can smack his head!" "What was that?!" The thief seemed more focused on how he ended up airborne rather than being caught by him. "I almost blew up in here, man! She came outta nowhere!" "Serves you right, too." Was the only response he got before a Web splattered over the Thief's face. Still, his words made him look at the front of the car, where a large black don't awaited it. It looked like almost the entire front of the car had been burned away and a smouldering husk was left. Peter scrutinized the damage in shock. How did she do that? She'd have to a flamethrower the size of a minivan to... The science driven part of his brain shut off as another thought popped up. Hey. Where is she, anyway? Page 3"GyAH!" She ripped what remained of her incinerated gloves off her hands and catapulted them into the pavement. "What the f=ck?! What the f@ck?!" She shrieked looking at the glowing centers of her palms as she rushed to the doors at the bottom of the apartment, vibrating with hot energy and smelling of smoke. A few staff members inside cast her brief looks but chalked up her freaked out appearance to being a teenager. Samantha was thankful for that; who knows how many other people saw her obliterate that car? How did she do that?! She jogged up several flights of stairs on pure adrenaline, not touching the rails or herself or anything for fear of what might happen. By now, however, her palms had reduced themselves back to her normal skin color and didn't seem to be glowing anymore. She didn't chance it though, and she even hesitated when she reached her door. Swiftly yanking the key out of her pocket as if it might catch fire any second, Samantha used it to open the lock on the door hurriedly. To her dismay, her mother was adjusting a potted plant in the small living room and could fully see her as she hurried inside. "Oh, hey, Hon. I know, I know, I've touched this thing a dozen times since we got here. I just..." Her mother suddenly seemed to notice her heavy breathing, the sweating and the frantic look in Samantha's eyes. "...Samantha? Are you okay?" The answer was given in the form of Samantha rushing to her room in another fit of panic, so her mother followed her in and only stopped at the doorway. "Sammy, just breathe. Take off your backpack." Samantha stood still and simply stared at Celest for the longest time, but she eventually did as requested. When she took off the backpack, she sat down on the side of her bed with a sniffle. The sound made Celest tense slightly. "Just relax. Take a good breath." It didn't erase the shock of her discoveries, but Samantha did calm down just enough to not move away when her mother sat next to her. "You don't normally run in here like that--whats going on?" Samantha didn't say anything. "...Come on, I'm just...trying to help. Is it school? Did something happen at school?" Lying wasn't something she liked doing to her mother, but in the case it might be necessary. The girl searched her memory for any excuse and finally came up with something that occurred at school. "They,um, they talked about my hair. A lot today." It was something she could take, but it would be a believable excuse. "I just...I wanted to get here as fast as I could." "Oh. " Celest sounded downright appalled at the thought of anyone harassing her child over her natural hair color. Under different circumstances, Samantha might have smiled at this. "That can expect a call very soon so I can report these bullies." Samantha tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I-I don't really know their names." "Well, we can at least make boundaries. Such as saying only nice things about your beautiful hair." Celest sighed and placed an arm on Sam's shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly. "I really am sorry about forcing us here so randomly. If they could somehow pick up the building and carry it back home, I would've tried that first. If I had known this would happen, I would have chosen another school. " "Yeah. I'll... be fine where I am. " For some reason, Samantha felt the need to defend her new school despite criticising it just moments earlier. "Um, I-I made some friends. Peter and Michelle." As expected, her mom honed in on the name Peter and smirked softly. "Peter? Is he a cute Peter?" "Mom." "Just joking. Are they nice friends? Did they say anything about your hair?" She asked. Samantha mentally recalled the conversation. "Michelle said she thought my hair looked like bacon. But it was in a good way. She's weird." Celest pursed her lips. "Well, its definitely the first time I've heard that one. No other good compliments? Anything else interesting happen today?" "No." She said quickly, willing herself not to look down at her hands yet. " I...I'm just really tired right now. " "Oh, well that's fine, Sammy." Celest stood and stalked over to the doorway, once again stopping to offer a smile at her daughter. A smile was given right back, even if it did look more tired by the second. "You rest up. I was thinking later we could get a burger from somewhere. Or pizza, if you want?" "Pizza does sound better." Samantha nodded. "Pizza it is." "Come on! Just one call back or something." Peter said this mostly to himself, frustrated with the lack of feedback from Happy and Tony. He sent like a billion messages yesterday about Samantha and her weird powers, but not one of them said a thing about it. He expected Mr.Stark, an Avenger for crying out loud, to at least say something like...I got this or web her up. Not that Peter wanted her to get caught or anything. It was a pretty cool power to have, in his opinion. The teen wouldn't deny that he felt a bit excited and anxious about attending classes with another super person. Maybe he should say something about it? No, that would give away his identity and she does not look like the type to remain quiet about that. But he couldn't just...Like, should he arrest her or whatever? Blab to Mr.Stark about it? " wassup." A casual Michelle elbowed him on the way past. " 'sup." He said back. Mr.Stark wasn't even listening to his calls; no one had for the past eight months. Peter was starting to become doubtful of what the Avenger saw in him; was he doubting him because he was just fifteen? Nah. Couldn't be because of his age. The Vision was less than three years old after all. It was probably because of his lack of experience in team stuff. Spider-man had always been a lone wolf in the shadows of the night, bringing justice without help. If he wanted to be on the same level as other superheroes, he had to probe himself. As a leader, at least. Showing Mr.Stark how good he was at leading could work out nicely in the future. More missions and stuff. Light bulb. He had to strain his facial muscles to keep the smile he had from growing, especially since smiling in a lunch line was a bad idea. It all made perfect sense; Samantha clearly had great power , but from what he'd seen there was no training if any. It was a win-win situation-- Spider-man takes her under his wing, shows her the ropes and then Iron man comes rolling in to give him an Avengers position! Not to mention that he could get a sidekick out of this whole thing, and he always wanted a sidekick before, just like in the comics. Sure, she wasn't the spitting image of Robin when it came down to personality and all, but it was nothing he could fix. And convincing her would be easy! Who wouldn't want to be a super hero? Peter rubbed his hands together slightly like the mad genius he was. "This is gonna be amazing." "What's gonna be amazing?" "Whuzzah?!" Peter whirled around and got an eyeful of Samantha blinking at his surprise. Aside from a red t-shirt and leather gloves, she looked basically the same as yesterday. "Geez. You made my heart skip a beat." "Aw, that was the cutest flirt I've ever seen. " The girl cooed sarcastically, pursing her lips in a faux flattered smile. She looked like she was in a better mood than yesterday. "And I've been standing behind you for the past six minutes. You snapped at your phone and them got quiet and then said this is gonna be amazing." Peter blinked twice at her before finally making a nod. "Uh, yeah. That was about my Stark internship. I missed a call earlier...saying that I might get a new partner to work with. She's new in Queens." "Really? That's cool, I guess. Did they say when that would happen?" She asked, her interest piqued. Peter shrugged coyly, crossing arms as he entered the mad scientist mood again. "They dunno. They said I might be giving her an interview soon. Juuust have to wait and see what she says about it." Author's Note A short chapter building up to an awesome proposal. Job Offer"Here's the ticket, little lady. Hang on to it, in case you need it. You'll be in car 423B." Samantha pocketed the ticket dutifuly and readjusted her backpack's straps so that she didn't risk losing by way of dropping. It was odd to be so stiff and uncertain about a simple train ride back to her neighborhood, but it was only her second day doing this. A train felt infinitely different than an averge car ride, where people you actually recognized rode with you. People from all walks of life and all types of ages crammed themselves together on the train and eyed her the same way everyone else at school did. She didn't like it, but unless her mom was quitting her job, there was no way this would be ending. At the very least, she could start to learn a tips about riding a train; tips that could benefit her later in the future. For one, she'd have to get to the subway station much earlier than two minutes before departure or she would lose any good seats to some greasy dude or a prissy woman. Nothing but luck got her a spacious seat right next to the back door of the train, where an empty seat sat to the right and tother the front of her. A college-aged gentlemen chose to stand when he boarded, leaning against the metal pole and picking bits of dirt out of the wheels of his skateboard. Samantha flinched as some of the dirt pieces hit her face but found more trouble from a fancily dressed woman sitting in front of her with a child no older than eight perhaps. Given her attire and the way she was practically yelling into the phone, Samantha found that the woman reminded her of her mother. The teen didn't care to listen on the conversation, especially when the woman's daughter took notice of her. "Your hair is different." The girl pointed out, and quite literally to. Fed up with the insults about her hair color, She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, kid. It is." "I like it." The girl smiled widely, showing a missing tooth with hesitation. "It's pretty." "Oh. Um...thanks." She wasn't sure what else to say to that, but the little girl's mom had a sentence at the ready, even when in the middle of a complex phone call. "Don't talk to strangers honey." Her gaze turned to Samantha, rather disapproving and cynical for some reason. "That goes for you too. Now, Linda, no. That's not what..." She rolled her eyes and turned her focus off of the woman. Instead, she gazed out of the window at the world underneath the rays of the powerful sun and if the train moved close enough she could spot tiny specks of people too. The clothed ants were walking along the street or getting into their cars or just standing at a phone booth. Not a single person was standing still; everyone was busily moving and busily doing...things. Even some of the buildings, especially the more impressive ones, seemed to be alive with the faint sight of movement behind those windows. In the distance, some five miles or so, stood a building with a distinct slope at the top and an easily recognizable tightly to it. The Avengers tower. Anyone could name it just by glancing at the huge A at the top of it. When it first showed up publicly, Samantha wasn't sure what to think of who owned the place and what they started doing around the world. On one hand they were saving people and at the same they caused collateral damage. It was kinda like some ironic form of balance, keeping both aspects of them in view of the world so that most people didn't know what to think of them. At least they knew how to control their abilities most of the time...No. She didn't have those weird beam abilities anymore, and she shouldn't compare herself to the likes of Thor or The Hulk. She could be normal again with the abilities now gone, and she'd only see another superhuman from far away distances. Hopefully for a long time. An upside down head suddenly appeared in the window, made to ovalish by a tight red mask. Her eyes widened as she recognized the black web pattern on his face and the expressive black lenses that looked straight at her. Before she could really gasp, he held up a small sticky note for her to see and gestured for her to read it. She swallowed a tad nervously and after looking around to see the unobservant passengers on board, leaned forward hesitantly to read what was written in Sharpie: Meet me in the first alley you see when you get off the train She opened her mouth to try asking him why he wanted her of all people to meet him, let alone in some disgusting alley, but he turned the note around: T.T.F.N: Tata for now, Samantha! Then he was gone, leaping from the window and disappearing into the air. She snarled in frustration; an answer to one of the many questions bubbling inside her would be nice. How could he expect her to suddenly meet him somewhere, when she barely knew anything about him except that he was...common around Queens? To top it all off, her curiousity was highly peaked now; she was starting to want to find out what he wanted. He could've broken into the train and snatched her, so he was being nice and civilized. Samantha sighed. Took her long enough for her to get here! Peter wasn't expecting to wait an extra ten minutes for her to arrive, and the excitement of being able to talk to her was wearing off. He spent the first three minutes reciting what he would say, from the greeting to the end if she agreed to his idea. Then a black cat came along on the roof somehow, and he was distracted for the remaining time by playing around with it. Around the end of the tenth minute, however, is when he heard his soon to be partner in the alley. "Okay! This is the FIFTH Alley I've been in! Are you gonna show up or what?" Oh,yeah. He had said the first alley. Peter gave the cat's head one last scratch and then peered over the edge of the building; Samantha was down there, alright. Seeing the girl so impatient gave him a better idea for an introduction and he aimed a wrist down at her. Seconds later he yanked on the webline attached to her shoulders and she was sent flying upwards with a shriek of surprise. He contained a laugh long enough for his hands to shoot out at the right time and grasp her by the waist. Then to finish, he twirled around and set her down on the rooftop with him. "Aaaand she sticks the landing!" Spidey announced, clapping like a one-man audience while Samantha briefly hyperventilated and stared at him with wide eyes. "Gotta say, that was awesome. Amazing acrobatics. I give it a 10 out of 5." "You...Y...What the hell is your problem?!" She snapped lowly, briefly looking around to look at her surroundings. She seemed less excited to see him, he noticed. "You don't just randomnly pull someone up on a roof! There's whiplash--a list of things you have to worry about." His lenses made a motion similar to eye-rolling. "I did not go at the speed at which you'd suffer whiplash. If I wanted to, you'd...uh, your gloves are..." She looked down at her leather clad hands and saw the smoking holes in the palms. He guessed that her powers currently worked on the danger she could sense or maybe surprise, kinda like how his spider-sense worked." Aw, sh!t. These were my favorite gloves." "Yeah, that sucks. But they had ketchup on them from the lunch table, anyway. Anywho, it's time for introductions!" He recited, crossing his arms heroically. "I am Spider-man, Defender of Queens and stuff." "Yeah, I know that." She removed the gloves and stuffed them in her pocket, before once again wearing a look of suspicion. "What do you want with me?" "Ah, yes. The truth behind our meeting. What could it be about? What could be about...? Oh yeah. Those." He pointed at her smoking hands. "Remember yesterday when those babies flipped a car like you were flipping a coin?" Most of her cynical side seemed disappear shortly after that, and she took a step back worriedly. "...I wasn't trying to! I swear I wasn't--The car was just there and--" "Pfft, I'm not here to arrest you or something like that. If anything, I should thank you; the driver was a total lunatic and a serious thief. You stopped him and fast too, so it's all good. That's actually why I brought you here." He paused and nodded at her. "I want you to be my sidekick, my partner-in-crime! The final piece to a dynamic duo, that sort of thing!" "...wait. what?" "I want you to be my help in keeping the city clean!" Peter felt a sense of Deja vu and noted that he was kind've in the same position as Mr.Stark not that long ago. That meant he was on the right track, since Peter readily agreed to joining Iron man."Of course we'll have to make up a costume for you, something practical, you know? You cant have any stark-made suits like mine--sorry. And I've already got a cool name for you!" Samantha frowned at him. "I'm not going to do anything remotely related to what you do." "...come again?" Peter seemed to deflate slightly. "Uh, Spider-man, right? Maybe you have me confused for someone else, and that's why we're here right now. Or maybe you really, really got your hopes up." She explained with a deadpan look. "But I'm not a superhero and I don't think I want to be." Spidey shrugged as if this were the most surprising thing to hear, which it was. Maybe it was because of his long time as an idolized hero, but he couldnt see anything bad about it. "Who wouldn't want to be one of the good guys? You got powers, anyway! Use them in a responsible yet cool way." "Just because I have whatever they are...It doesn't make me a superhero. For all I know this only temporary anyway."Samantha retorted, subconsciously clasping her hands together. "My life's already been changed enough as it is. I just want things to be as normal as possible for me." "A little late for that, don't you think?" Peter remarked before he could stop talking. His Spidey-persona had a tendency to do that sometimes. "You..."She glared at him fiercely, cutting herself off for only a moment. "Look,Can you put me back down now and leave me alone?" He was losing her, and his only chance at promotion in the superhero biz! How did it fail so horribly?! Peter desperately gestured to the majority of Queens that they could see. "But...It's be awesome traveling through all of this! I'td be awesome saving lives everyday and making a difference! Can't you just give it a chance--" "No! " An involuntary glance from both of them noticed that her hands were glowing again, this time red instead of yellow. With a gasp, the red returned back to her normal skin color. She reluctantly looked back at him. "Just please let me down." Peter sighed. He supposed that he didn't really have a choice in the matter, and clearly couldn't change her mind about it. "Yeah. Sure." He pouted as he walked over to the edge of the roof and cast a line down to the hard ground. Nice going, Peter--now we're back to square one again. The young man secured the end and gestured for her to approach the way down. "Hey, uh...thanks for at least trying to meet me." Samantha paused, but didn't stare at him as he continued."I...really hope that power does go away with time like you wish." As she began to descend down the line, he heard her mumble in agreement. Loose Lips make PartnershipsWhat a crazy, crummy morning for Samantha. It was cloudy today, possibly meaning to break into a light shower or two when the time came. It brought dappled light down onto the sidewalk she trekked, amongst several other people that had done little more than glance at the sky. The only one who didn't seem to be as melancholic as everyone else was a little girl, the same one from the train to be precise, and that was merely because she was busy playing with a small doll. It was a toy marked with red coloring and black lines to resemble a tiny, crude version of Spider-man. Samantha groaned and didn't look down at the kid again. That Spider-man. He was the reason she'd been up for most of the night, thinking over the offer she turned down. She didn't regret making the firm decision, yet she couldn't help but think about what things could have been like if she said yes. Maybe with more usage, her 'powers' would eventually fade away into nothingness and she'd be normal again. It would have been nice to know the extent of her temperature; to see just how hot her palms could really get. Maybe she could be like Iron man, with his repulsor rays. Listen to yourself. You sound like some optimistic kid. She agreed with that thought. People like Spider-man didn't want her so they could teach to her control her strength--they wanted it for their 'hero' cause. Hell, the only reason that she'd been noticed was because she flipped a car in the street. It wouldn't work; she didn't like the idea of punching someone, let alone a crook who could easily kill her or even shoot her.She wasn't an urban myth with bulletproof skin, after all. But all the logic in the world couldn't stop her from imagining that kind of lifestyle. Samantha tried to envision herself in a funky, spandex costume and shuddered--What a horrific, embarrassing thought. But when she thought about helping people--maybe stopping house fires or saving citizens from the wake of a bridge collapsing--she found that it was easy to think about. At least with work like that, she'd never have to punch anyone. The group of sidewalkers began to shift themselves on the street to cross it, and Samantha checked her phone for the time. In a little over half an hour, school would start. Hopefully the train would be ready and waiting when she arrived at the station. Halfway onto the other side of the street, she saw the light turn green and frowned at its speed in changing color. A car honked behind a big truck and the deiver, who was reading a newspaper boredly, pressed into the gas. His large eighteen wheeler lurched forward with surprising speed, it's driver never removing the paper from his eyes. Time seemed to slow down for Samantha when she saw the little girl in the middle of the road, reaching for her fallen toy, eyes widening at the approaching vehicle. The teenager gasped herself and stretched out a distant hand to reach for her. She was too far away with not enough time to run and pull her out of the way! A thick tendril of orange energy suddenly exploded outwards from her palm and shot at the girl with a surprising quickness. She blinked with a dumbfounded gaze as the tendril wrapped swiftly around the girl's middle and tugged her over to the sidewalk just as the truck crushed the area the kid had once been in. Samantha watched the coil dissipate into thin air and then the face of the child as it contorted into a look of pure awe and surprise. The teen swallowed, finally comprehending what had just hapened. "Are you okay?!" She asked her nervously, wringing her hands around each other as if it might prevent another random outburst of energy. "I-I'm sorry if I hurt you, I just--" "Joan!" The voice of the mother cut into the conversation, before the real deal scowled to a kneeling halt in front of her daughter. As one might expect, she scanned the girl skeptically. "Joan! What are you doing back here, away from mommy? I told you yesterday that you don't talk to strangers." The girl, Joan it would seem, nodded sheepishly but gratefully at Samantha as she began. "I know, but I left Ms.Annise in the street by accident so I went back to get her. Then she pulled me out of the way of the big car!" Joan's mother gasped in shock, carefully looking over her daughter a second time and then giving a surprised look to Samantha. "Thank you. I've always told her to keep up with me on the sidewalk, but...I shouldn't move so fast to begin with." She nodded with a shaky sigh. "Just...Thank you." The kid grinned even wider at her now. The teen stood stiffly at the attention she was getting; apparently bystanders could overhear the car rescue and were sending approving looks from afar or nearby. Samantha looked at each face, anxiety written over her own, but gradually adopted something more proud and pleased. She'd gained a feeling that she knew would remain with her all the way to school and perhaps the way back home. It was something very difficult to explain, but it felt too real to be ignored. She'd saved someone, without the need for violence, and it felt...good. Pretty good, indeed. "Just like that? Just no?" Peter rolled his eyes. "Of course not just like that. She had her reasons, and all but...it was still a good offer. I mean, Mr. Stark doesn't just offer an internship to anybody, y'know." "You sure?" Ned asked with a faux tone of curiousity. "Didn't he hire you?" "Man, shut up. She had...qualifications like me that would've landed her an easy job." Peter explained somewhat truthfully. It never got old; making up stories parallel to his Spider-man life by using the term 'Stark Internship'. "It's not like there would've been anything too hard for her, you know? Just the usual stuff that people do in an internship." "What do people do in an internship?" "Uh...internship stuff?" "Fair enough...Is it bad that it feels like a Friday to me?" Ned rubbed at his eyes tiredly, evidence that he hadn't had much rest since 'recovering' from his sickness. The doctors had him off for so many days that Peter thought he might actually be switching schools, but a surprise return said otherwise. "It feels pretty bad." "Ned, it is Friday." Peter laughed softly. "What type of medicine are you taking, man?" "The deep stuff, if I'm being honest with you. " He groaned. "I didn't know Claritin even came in a liquid version, that is just too weird." "Really? A liquid? What's that taste like?" "Piss. Literal Piss." "You know what Piss tastes like?" Ned chuckled weakly and elbowed his side, earning more laughter from Peter. The goofing around left them unaware of where they were walking, which happened to be on the left side of the hall towards the corner. By the time Peter realised he was about to turn on the corner, he ran straight into a slightly shorter, feminine body and nearly knocked her over. "Oh, sh!t! Sorry, my bad m--...oh." He blinked in mild surprise at the familar yellow and red hair. "Uh, hey, Sorry Sam. Ned, this is--uh--the new girl I mentioned. Samantha, this is Ned." Before Ned could really say anything, Samantha held up a finger. "Hi, Ned! I'm sorry to interrupt you, but could I talk to Peter for a sec, please? I've been waiting for the perfect time to talk to him all day long!" Peter tilted his head. She seemed a lot more excited than he knew her to be in the past two days, and that was saying a lot. He looked to Ned for his reaction, and the shorter teen shrugged at him. "Sure. Go ahead." He elbowed Peter again. "Jackpot, Tiger." Peter's skin turned slightly red, but he shrugged off the odd feeling to focus on his failed partner in crime-fighting. "Uh, yo. What's up? Anything you wanted to hear about our Spanish homework or...?" "I changed my mind about the whole superhero thing. Well, kinda. " Samantha leaned against the wall and be her bottom lip as if trying to find the right words to say. "I mean, I have certain terms that I want to discuss. I don't have that many terms, but I just wanted to...you know, let you know." Despite this being sudden music to Peter's ears, he had no idea why she was telling him this and not Spider-man...not that Spider-man would know to ever have a second meeting."I'm...not sure I follow. What do you mean, superhero thing?" Her eyebrow quirked upward. "Eh? Yesterday on the roof? We spoke about being your partner and all? I said no? Just stop me when you start remembering. Waaait." She leaned forward a bit too far into his personal space, staring intently at her AC/DC shirt. "How does it work? Are you wearing the Spider-man suit under the shirt? Or is it in your backpack?" "I-I don't get it." He glanced around nervously; she was talking really, really loudly around all these people. "Why would I have a--uh-- Spider-man suit? " "Because you're Spider-man, maybe?" "Me?" Peter adopted a dry, but clearly nervous laugh to drown out her statement. A few girls gossiping glanced at them but rolled their eyes and continued to talk in the background. He stasted to sigh in relief, but cut that off with another laugh. "Ha, you're funny. I didn't take you for a comedian." "I didn't take you for someone who could flip a car with one hand! And yet here we are." Peter swallowed at her expression--she knew he was trying to blow this off. "There's no need to be secretive! After all, you blew that yesterday on the roof when you said, and I qoute: 'Your gloves had ketchup on them from the lunch table, anyway'. " Well, sh!t. "And I know for a fact that that it wasn't Michelle in that suit, even if your voice is a bit...feminine." Samantha remarked and caused Peter to roll his eyes. "I just wanted you to know that I changed my mind sooo...What happens next?" Peter narrowed his eyes and pointed a finger in her face as angrily as he could fake it. "I am not Spider-man--so sorry, but you should look somewhere else. " To continue his annoyed, angered facade, he started to walk past the disappointed girl. He paused just behind her, head turned halfway. "Heck, me being Spider-man is a stupid idea. If I were him, I'd probably be found after school at that Mexican Bakery down the left side block. But that's IF I was actually him. So chances are he won't even be there." Samantha blinked in surprise and turned to look at Peter, but he was already half way down the next hallway. Author's Note Now onward to the other story updates! *rides fictional horse to another story* Dawn of a sidekick“You boys are late.” He scoffed at the bearded shrimp, or at least, he seemed to like it compared with his taller partner. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that the dark-skinned guy in the jacket wasn’t going to do much talking. “You said 3. Never said 3 am or 3 pm.” He snorted in response. The guy leaned back against the white van, arms crossed. “You mean to tell me that you came out here at 3 am and then wait?” “Shaddup and show us what you got. It took hours to get the parole trackers off of us.” O’Hirn glanced at Marko with a raised eyebrow. “And it was harder ta get yer pay down here too.” “Ooh, Gruff. Alright, I got ya some priceless stuff. Somethin’ for both of you.” The guy took a brief glance around for spying eyes, then reached into the large pockets of his jacket. His left hand fished out the world’s most detailed looking brass knuckles--only they weren't brass. They had small rivulets running in circular motions on the knuckles, like veins for a hand. Dark gold metal surrounded the purple grooves and highlighted their glow. O’hirn would know that look from everywhere--after that hole in the sky opened up, everyone knew what this stuff was. He caught it as it was thrown his way, listening as the guy blabbered on. “ Check it--that thing is small for travel convenience. It may take time to charge between hits, but it can knock a motorcycle back through the air, man. That Hulk level stuff.” Marko sneered as he tossed him the pay; namely a very thick stack of cash. “And what about me?” The guy opened the back door of the van and reeled in a metal baseball bat. Marko examined it closer when it was tossed into his hands, tapping the alien collar at the base of it's handle. “What’s this thing supposed to do? It don't look fancy.” The guy grinned. “Trust me, you gonna want to see for yourself when you go up against someone.” O’hirn exchanged a nod of satisfaction with Marko. “Yeah, well...We got someone in mind.” “Then happy hunting.” Okay. The Italian bakery on the left block. Sam repeated in her head and was glad that there weren't that many restaurants in the area, let alone ones centered around italian food. In fact, she couldn’t call it a restaurant based on what she observed; it was more like a gas station without the gas...A convenience store. A dollar tree-styled place that sold burritos and sandwiches for the bakery, and then random items likes chips or skittles to fill the aisles. She stood in front of its glass doors and swallowed, looking up at the title: Delmar’s Deli-Grocery. No turning back now, I guess. It was a pretty average store on the inside. The small rectangle of concrete floors was highlighted by small aisles of food and tiny items. She briefly glanced around the place, assessing the faces of shopgoers and a middle aged guy behind the counter, sporting a greyish beard. He glanced up from his register and met her eyes, nodding in greeting. She nodded back, lightly and nervously. She started to turn back around and look for Peter when he nodded at her backpack. “Midtown high?” He asked, his voice aloof and calm. Samantha blinked once. “Um,yes.” “Figured. Only school close enough to here to get kid customers. Name’s Delmar, like on the store name.” The man said something in another language, to an employee appearing from the office. It must've been about her, because they kept glancing at her from the side. She had a feeling it was about her hair color. “You happen to know Peter?” “Uh, Parker? Yes. Have you seen him today?” “Well, now I have.” She didn’t get the time to ask what that meant, because Peter walked in immediately after. He nodded to Delmar as if he didn’t notice her, sauntering right up to the counter. “Hey, Mr.Delmar. Whassup?” “Parker! Speak of the devil,” Mr.Delmar leaned over on the country casually. “Let me guess, Number five, right?” “Yeah, and with extra pickles, and can you smush it down real flat?” Peter clapped for emphasis and suddenly whirled on Samantha. “Hey. You want somethin’?” Blinking away her confused stare, Sam shook her head. “Alright, more for me.” “You want it, you got it, Boss.” His employee got to work behind him, and Samantha suddenly regretted not taking Peter on his offer. That sandwich looked delicious. “Say, how's your Aunt doing?” “I’d say she's doing pretty good.” Samantha quirked an eyebrow as Delmar slyly spoke to his employee behind him in that language, then went back to Peter. The teen immediately spoke back in the exact same language, and she stifled a snort as the man’s cheeky smirk fell. He bluntly said: “That'll be ten dollars, kid.” “Come on, man! It's five dollars!” “For that comment, it's ten.” “Nah, I'm joshing, I’m Joshing.” Peter laughed as he retrieved five dollars from his pocket. “Look, here’s five--” “Actually,” Sam piped up and shuffled around in the contents of her purse. When she fished out a card she walked up to the counter beside Parker. “I’ll go ahead and try one of these, same stuff he has. I'll pay us for us both.” Delmar grinned his widest and winked at Peter. “Lotta luck today, kid. Insert in the chip,” He instructed. As she did so, a surprised teen blinked at her and adjusted his backpack awkwardly. “Uh, I coulda paid for both of ours.” “Well, its the thought that counts.” Sam watched as Delmar went to aid his employee with the sandwiches. “I thought you weren't going to show up for a sec.” “You were only in here for half a minute before I showed up.” Peter shot back, brushing past her to a white cat nestled on the counter. He scratched behind its ears, and it purred. “How do you know that? It's not like you’ve been watching me.” She pursed her lips after a moment of studying his expression. “You were watching me?” Peter gave her a sidelong glance. “Had to make sure you weren't blabbing about Spider-man at random. Especially out in public,” It suddenly occurred to her that his being a vigilante was probably a secret, one that she had carelessly talked about in front of whole bunch of people in school. She cringed, bu nervously laughed. “Ha, yeah. Sorry about that.” To get off that subject, she continued. “Um, about that...What were you planning on teaching me? The things in...this line of work?” Peter thought about the question, then shrugged. “Hmm. Where to start?” “Alright, so...Superhero stuff is fun sometimes, but its always a responsibility. People rely on us to save them, so it's our job to do just that.” Down a long stretch of sidewalk, Peter led her onto an unused path on a beeline for an alley. “Nothing serious has happened for a while, but that's what puts people in a false sense of security. There are a lot more crooks and thieves and stuff in Queens. This is ain’t Kansas anymore.” Sam rolled her eyes but continued to follow him with a mouthful of sandwich. “One: I moved here from Oregon, thank you. Two: Oregon probably has a lot more crime than Queens.” “Be that as it may, the fact remains that danger lurks everywhere for citizens.” They stepped into the alleyway and he tossed his backpack at the left wall, after removing his costume. A flick of his wrist had a spray of webs pin it there. “So, occasionally, Heroes like me wait till after school to don their suits and get to work.” “There are more people in high school that--” “No! No, I was...It's just me in high school. And you,” Peter hopped on one leg as he started putting on the suit. With both legs in, he started to work on the arms. “but you don't really count as your own hero, yet.” “I don't?” “Nope. You’re like, junior sidekick level. We’ll work you up to my level soon.” He patted the spider emblem on his suit and it tightened around him to a comfortable degree when it zipped up. With his mask in one hand, he held the other out to her. “Uh, do you have any questions, by the way?” “As a matter of fact I do,” She began as he climbed on three limbs and used the other to carry her up. She glanced at the ground leaving her behind and swallowed. She might grow a fear of heights working with this guy. “Is your line of the work the only thing a hero can work in the department of?” “...Line of…?” Sam bit her lip as she tried to think of how to explain it. “Well, you do work in terms of fighting crime and apprehending criminals. Sure, I’d like to save people that way but...Could I be like, The fireman superhero while you’re The police officer superhero?” As he pulled her up onto the roof, Spider-man’s lenses blinked once. “Huh. “ When she asked about his simple response, he said: “That’s how Mr.Stark and I are grouped. He does the world saving stuff, and he has me do stuff on the streets.” Sam scrunched her nose. “I thought you were an Avenger.” “Who says I'm not? I'm the backup. They just...have me stashed for a rainy day. They wouldn't be the Avengers if they needed me all the time, you know?” “Oh, I get it. The Avengers are like the military, you’re the police and I'm the fire department!” “No, you’re my intern, junior sidekick.” “Oh...kaaay.” Spider-man gestured to his surroundings, and for the first time, she noticed the many things assorted by hand. Old bed bunks in one spot, a few worn out nightstands in the middle and a slip and slide next to his feet. “Well anyway, today we start your training. For the police side. Maybe in a month, you can be a fire girl or whatever.” Samantha flinched at his nonchalant words--A month?! She didn't expect this to be a days work, but she didn't expect this to take a month either. “I...Well…” Instead of thinking about backing out, she pointed to the old junk around them. “What’s with the...hobo water park?” “Ha. Hobo Water Park. Funny…I pulled this stuff out of the local junkyard and brought it here.” Spider-man walked to the other end of the roof where the two rusty bed bunks were stationed. He took a running start, jumped through both and rolled to a halt on the other side like an Olympic champion. “Can you do what I just did?” Samantha rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “If I take these heels off, I can. I took Gymnastics for years before I came to Queens.” Peter nodded, pointing at the spaced-out nightstands. “And can you double-leap over these?” “Yes.” “And do a controlled slide on that water thingy?” “Yes.” Spider-man nodded, clearly skeptical but withholding his judgment for the time being. “Well, good. Cause you're gonna be running through his course for a week to build your agility up to par with mine.” “I just said I took Gymnastics for years! My agility is probably better than yours!” She said with exasperation, but when he didn't look ready to budge, Samantha sighed. “Look...If I can run through this course in eight seconds at least, then consider making this once a week.” Spider-man scoffed. “Eight seconds? Not happening. “ When she set up the timer app on her phone and handed it over, he laughed. “Wow. You're really serious about this.” Samantha tossed her heels over to a corner of the roof. “I didn't agree to this just so I could get sweaty after school. I agreed so I can figure out how to control my powers.” She stood poised at the two-bed bunks, crouching before the first one at a close range. Peter tilted his head. “I'm starting the timer. Maybe you should take a running start before--” A blur shot from the ground and vaulted between the bed bunks, before spinning on a heel and making two hops over the nightstands. The momentum made the blur lash a foot out to propel from the roof’s edge, and she made a controlled crash onto the Slip N’ Slide. A forwards roll had her back on her feet in seconds. “Whoo! Maybe I shouldn't have done that after eating...What's my time?” “Uh...oh.” He glanced down at the phone and handed it back to her. “Its...Seven point ninety-three” Peter looked over the course he’d set up and tried to reimagine her sprint through it. “Geez, where'd you take gymnastics: The military?” “Now you have to consider once a week training.” Sam smirked with an air of smug superiority. “And maybe fill in the rest of the time by taking me with on a...uh, patrol of yours. When you fight crime and stuff.” He sat down with a displeased huff. “Fine. Maybe I’ll let you tag along today. But I'm gonna have to web half your face to conceal your identity. If anyone sees you with me--” “Not to worry, I brought some stuff. See, I had this cool idea of using these sunglasses,” She unzipped her purse and pulled out dark red shades, then promptly put them on. She held up a finger briefly. “Hang on. Not finished!” Grinning the slightest, she fished out a yellow bandana with red streaks in it. She tied her hair back in a ponytail and then concealed most of her hair by tying the bandana around it. After putting on fingerless red gloves, she struck a hands-on-your-hips pose and smiled. “Huh? Huuuuh? Do you like it? I’m thinking of calling myself: Firecracker!” His lenses blinked but they would never be able to convey the deadpan look on his face. “...You...expect me to go out every day, and listen to people yell: ‘It’s Spider-man and Firecracker’?” Sam’s face fell into a dramatic pout. “ What’s wrong with Firecracker? I like Firecracker.” “Firecracker sucks. That's like a stripper name or something.” She gave an offended gasp. “What?! It does not sound like a stripper name? It sounds like a really cool superhero in training! And maybe when I quote and quote Graduate, I can be Missle-girl!” Spider-man hung his saddened head. “No. That is worse. That is so much worse.” He suddenly flinched. A light tingle at the base of his skull flared up, and he grimaced at the familiarity if it. “Shit.” Now her offended expression deepened. “Okay, now you’re just being mean.” Shushing her, Peter leaned over the edge of the opposite side of the roof. His lenses zoomed in a truck slowing to a halt in front of the old laundromat on the street corner. His view magnified to get an up-close look at the two bozos getting out if the car. “Uh, why’d you stop talking?” “We might be witnessing a robbery in progress.” “What? You can't just spring that on me!” “Those guys,” He pointed down at them. “Are some small time crooks I know. They're usually good with getting away with things. Almost as good as Turk Barrett.” “Who?” “I’ll school you on all the big names later. Right now, we gotta get down there and stop them before they make off with the money. “ He hopped onto the ledge and glanced back at her. “Too bad you can’t fly. Guess you’ll have to jump and I’ll catch you.” “Uh, these guys...aren't dangerous, are they?” She called down to the leaping hero, secretly admiring his professional landing. “They won't try to...shoot us?” “Or stab us. Yes. Just stay in the background, try not to fight and let me do the talking. You and me,” He gestured to themselves. "We got this.” Samantha gently lowered herself on the edge of the roof, about to jump into a whole new world. Adventure and Danger awaited her, in an ocean that could change her life forever. "Famous last words," Sam quipped and jumped from the roof. SucessSomething has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.
Where the fun all began!Author's Note Hey again, Happy! :-D Just checking in again for another update on my next mission with Mr.Stark, or anyone else in particular. Hope to hear from you soon! This is Peter. ... Parker. PETER PARKER. Monday, September 4th-8:43AM Where the fun all began! Now finished with his 349th message, Peter hit the send button lazily. Then, he scrolled upwards to view the 348 other messages that he'd taken great time and effort to create for Happy,letting him know about quitting band practice or getting school holidays that gave him off time for more super hero work.Happy must be in some pretty deep consideration about all the information Peter gave him, because he hadn't heard from the particularly unhappy butler-dude since the ride home from Germany. Patience wasn't Peter's strong suit, but he knew he couldn't do much about the lack of development over the phone. He couldnt just call up Happy and be like 'yo man, wheres my next mission at?' or do something stupid like that. Peter even tried false alarming Happy once by texting about Ultron's return or aliens in disguise. Nothing--not a single blasted emoji was seen that day. But, Peter digressed in time to dodge the Principal and his starbucks mocha. "Let's keep our heads up, Mr. Parker." The middle aged man advised as he began to disappear into the sea of bodies. "You know, so we can see what's in front of us?" Peter half smiled and nodded, even though the Principal was very unlikely to turn around and see that to begin with. "Yeah. Good idea, sir." The sophomore shuffled down the hallway with enough agility to skirt past a portion of his innumerable peers. The journey to his locker was often traveling like this, so it wasn't that difficult to steer around those that barely noticed him to begin with. It was all a matter of chance, if one looked at it close enough; it was a gamble to guess where Sarah or Bill would be chatting when you're looking at the ground, or where Jim and Andrea would sucking each other's lips off for that matter. Today was a show and tell day for most of them too, so ducking was something he had to get used to until he finally reached his locker. It was only a matter of time before his subconscious wandered through his itinerary for the day, the list somewhere in between long and short in his mind. First there was Chemistry, then a few insignificant classes, lunch, two more periods that lived only to waste his time and then he had a half hour's worth of "Spidering" to do. But that last part could be cut short due to homework over the first part. And then there was the constant threat of Flash actually being at school today to call him "Penis Parker" for the 9,000th time and give everyone something to laugh about for a few seconds. Oh and the Web fluid--he almost forgot that! He was running low on the stuff and needed a new batch. Peter noted to himself mentally that he needed to mix up at least a pound of it to last him a whole month and not a whole week. He fished around at the bottom of his locker for the the right notebook that contained his web fluid formula and cautiously glanced over his shoulders to make sure no one was causally glancing at it. No one ever was, or had noticed any proof of his other life for 8 months now...but one couldn't be too prideful in their sneakiness. Pride goeth before a fall, as his Aunt usually said. Or...was it, cometh? Yeah. That was it. Cometh. Probably. When Peter shut his locker door, a certain...weird acquaintance of his was there to give him his daily heart attack. Michelle raised her eyebrow at him as he visibly flinched and then offered her a sneering look of disbelief. "You're in front of my locker, Peter." "Would it kill you to just..." Peter stared dumbly at the tan-skinned girl lightly pushing him back and stooping down to the locker beneath his own. His arms sarcastically flopped in the air for a moment. "Yeah. Okay. No need to ask me to move. Just...constantly be weird. And rude. " Her messy brown bub bobbed slightly when she stood up after closing the locker again. "So, you're neither of those things?" She made some kind of indescribable face at him that seemed insulting all its own. "You were staring off into space after you pulled out that notebook. Just thought I'd wait a for a second to see if you'd drool or do something else mildly stupid." "...I think you'd make a great stalker, Michelle." Peter patted her shoulder with the most reassuring smile he could muster at the moment. "I can see you having a great future in it. Maybe you can make your own industry off of it. Creeps Inc., they'll call it." Michelle finally rolled her eyes--why didn't she do that earlier? "Please don't try your new comedy act on the new kid when he or she shows up. " "Uh...what?" "Oh, right. Mr.Conners never told rest of the class. " She shrugged as she went into detail about her statement, body in preparation to leave. "We're supposed to be getting a 'new student' in the school. Only way he knows this is because their mom is the owner of a pretty decent phone business. Crystal Empire, I think." Peter scrunched his nose. "Crystal Empire? I thought that was just a toothpaste company!" Michelle shrugged and began to walk off into the crowded areas of the hallways, finally shrinking away from his sight as the bell rang and the movement of students became became even more frequent--er, frantic. Peter hummed in thought over having some really rich classmate; he certainly wasn't opposed to that. Most people didn't differ to him whether they were rich or not, and he wasn't the kind of guy who tried being friends with someone just for money. Still...it wasn't his fault if he got money in the end. After all, ingredients for Web fluid didn't grow on trees. So long as they weren't the cliche, bossy, high-and-mighty type of people--he could like them.Or Stark-centric. ________________________~________________________ ONE HOUR EARLIER: ________________________~________________________ Samantha raised her finger boredly, orchaestrating the cacophony of car horns since she couldn't hear her own music over the sound of them. Without much interest, she directed the timing of the truck's tenor blasts and then mixed mini-cooper's high pitched blaring with the sound of a few angry drivers they were close enough to hear. Narrating the whole scene of Symphony was a particularly close voice in the background, talking to her phone without much notice of her child. "No, it's not my fault that this traffic just appeared...Yes, I'm almost out of it. For the twelfth time, no! I can't just immediately drive over!" Celest Summers continued to argue with whoever was on the other end of the phone, her tone as frustrated as usual. Though with the traffic and the individual on the other end of the phone, it was hard to tell what was annoying her more. "Because I have to drop my daughter off at school. You're sure he can't just bump up the meeting to nine?...well, make up something. Just say I'm in traffic--I am, technically." Sam shifted her attention away from that and focused it on the strange vibrations that ran through the ground beneath the car tires. Oh right; the subway trains in New York ran endlessly, something she'd have to get used to as a method of getting to school. After she got used to her new school...and after she got used to the apartment she was supposed to call home for now. It's living space was three times as cramped as the comfortable home she had in Oregon--the walls were thin enough to hear someone three blocks away and the living room was merged with the kitchen. Ironically, her mom being a CEO should have gotten them something better to live in, but it was exactly her fault that they had to move all the way out to New York in the first place. Sal could only pick out snippets of detail from the reason she was punished, and it had something to do with acquiring an important building somewhere near Queens. "No. You're going to stick with that and that's final. I'll talk with you later." With the phone no longer distracting her, the car soon filled with the tension of a conversation on the horizon. They hadn't talked since last night, excluding the unnoticeable 'good morning' or two. Maybe if she kept staring out the window, Sam might be able to completely avoid any-- "Sorry i couldn't get any breakfast made before we left. I know how bad it is to go to school on an empty stomach..." Sam kept up her silence with fading hope, and Celest briefly glanced at her. "This is the part where you say something like...'It'll be bad if I go to school altogether.' Or just the usual sigh of exasperation." "Is this the part where I'm supposed to laugh and be happy all of a sudden?" The teen sighed into the window, still not turning to face her mother. Celest's small smile fell dramatically after that remark. "...Well, I see that you're still a little peeved about all this. Still, I'm not sure what pouting about it is going to do. Didn't you always complain that you hated the school back there? No one you could really talk to?" "I got used to hating it, and then it wasn't that bad anymore. And so what?" She responded incredulously and frowned when they reached the end of traffic, finally turning onto the street that would lead them to Midtown High. "Not gonna make friends here and no one's gonna do the same with me." "Well, I don't expect you to make friends for once, as much as I want you to. If you could, that'd be great...and surprising. But I'm not giving you the 'make new friends speech.' I've been given it more than once. " Celest sighed down at her phone,still thinking about her phone call prior to the end of traffic. The car pulled into the carpool, where a few other cars were sitting patiently in front of the school's main doors. " I know I definitely lack in friends...especially now that I'm the one who's everyone's boss. " Sam squinted at her. "But you haven't had this position for a full week." "Yep. Enemies can appear anywhere. Especially when you start doing some amazing things." Celest remarked with a tired shrug and leaned forward to peck her daughter's forehead. Said daughter sighed and gathered the backpack from between her calves, placing it's massive weight on her lap. " Now go and make some amazing grades in...It's barely the end of September." Samantha was almost out of the car when she said that, and the abrupt statement made her turn around sharply. "...yeah. So?" "What's with the gloves?" Samantha casually tucked a few strands of her red hair behind an ear. "Uh, just wanted to. It looks cool. See you later.' With an official goodbye from her mom, the girl's smile dropped slowly as her ride disappeared from view. She looked down at her glove and peeled away the wrist opening to see that the skin of her palm was still glowing--brighter than yesterday. She swallowed anxiously and readjusted the glove; it'd go away soon enough. She didn't need to think about it now, of all times. ________________________~________________________ Chemistry at last. It literally felt like he'd never get to this class and, more importantly, get the instruments he usually used to brew up some more web fluid. To make matters better, Mr. Conners was missing and some really unobservant substitute teacher was bringing everyone through a simple expirement with fire. Peter adjusted his seat to make leaning down to his secret lab (which was just a drawer embedded in the side of the lab station) easy for him, grinning like a mad scientist already. Maybe this time I'll make it last longer. Or delay the hardening process when it shoots out... "Use the bunsen burner in your expirement, and make sure the nozzle is secured. " The substitute read word for word what instructions were left for him. It was basically a distant hum in the back of Peter's mind as he snuck out two pitchers of corn syrup from the lower cupboard at the back of the room. It was going to be part of an expirement to make some kind of food, but surely Mr.Conners wouldn't care about a pitcher of his being a little...empty--at least not for a few days. "Then, align the washer above..." "Sir? We have the instruction packet already." Peter recognized the voice of Betty Brant interrupting him."We can probably read it from here." Aside from a grumbling sound, the substitute shut up and resigned himself to the teacher's desk where he sat there and read an incredibly thick book. Peter finished pouring the last pound of corn syrup and went on to adding in the armful of liquid ingredients to the mix, causing the clear substance in the giant beaker to fizz but otherwise remain still. Just the addition of two eggs remained, and then a constant stir to keep it from hardening too early. The boy reached for his backpack, only to pause and stare as the door opened to the classroom. The girl was so unfamiliar to that he continued to stare, as did others in the classroom when they noticed her. Her hair, a cross between straight and bushy, was bright with thick zig zags of gold slicing through in a coordinated pattern. The long ends cascaded above her long sleeved purple shirt and black jean pants, doing little to hide the large backpack or her hands...covered with fingerless gloves. She was attractive (if Peter wasn't lying to himself, he'd admit that most girls at his school were attractive), but clearly in no condition to even be looked at. She held out a pass to the substitute wordlessly, and that's when it him. This was who Michelle was referring to earlier: Funny, since he wouldn't have expected someone with hair like hers to be the daughter of a CEO...or a high school student. He regarded the girl between efforts to quietly crack his eggs and get his yolk into the beaker without being caught, while the girl only roamed part or the classroom on a mission to find a seat. A good look told Peter that the seat next to him was open, but he knew how girls worked with him and seats. If he pointed out a seat next to him, they'd think he was some desperate idiot or something. He settled for not saying a word and mixing his concoction like he was supposed to do. He swashed the half liquid/solid stuff up in a circular motion and pulled up the mixer to see that it was all still too liquidy. A bit more air exposure and then more mixing oughtta do the trick. "No one's sitting here, right?" He jolted in surprise and whirled around to see the new girl looking equally startled, probably because of his reaction. Had he been too immersed in something again? "Well?" "Oh right. I mean, no. No. No one's sitting there." The girl sat down slowly as if she was regretting to choose to be right next to him, blue eyes warily scanning him up and down. "What's the matter?" Peter became acutely aware of just how long he'd been staring at the girl, and he turned away with a soft cough. "Never seen a girl before?" Like he'd never heard that one before. Secretly mixing up the web fluid just out of her eyesight, Peter shook his head. "Not with that hairstyle, no. How'd you dye it like that?" "This is natural." She said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "That's natural...?! Did you have a ketchup and mustard accident when you were little?" Peter shook his head--bad Spidey, wisecracking tendencies. "No. Wait. Sorry. That's... That was incredibly rude of me. I like it. I really do. It's, uh--whats the word?" "That's not the first time I've heard that joke. Just drop it." She dug around in her backpack for something. "Do new students have to do anything on the first day?" He shrugged, trying to think about the day he moved into this strange school. "Mr.Conners won't make you do anything until at least day three. He wants to meet all students personally, and ironically he's not here today." He paused, regarded the condition of his web fluid and then turned back to the girl. "I'm Peter, by the way. Peter Parker." She didn't respond to that, instead she chose to turn on her phone and move straight to her photos app. She had a picture of her school day schedule saved, it seemed. The boy pointed at her phone with a nod. "Oh yeah, your mom's the owner of that Crystal phone company thing, right?" The girl stared at him after a long moment of tensing up. "How do you know that?" "I know everything about you..." Peter said as ominously as possible, and when she narrowed her eyes, he laughed. "Hey, just kidding! A friend of mine just told me that Mr.Conners knew who you were. How does the phone thing work for you, since she owns everything? Is it free for you, or...?" He left that 'or' at the end to coax her, but she just made a straight line with her lips and tried not to notice him. His continued hand motions telling her answer chipped away at her until her expression softened ever so slightly. "I guess you won't shut up, huh?" "This is my least talkative day." She sighed and said: "Yes, its free. The phone bill, any app related to the brand that I buy is free too." "So does her stuff extend to tablets or laptops too? Making them, I mean." Peter said curiously. "Yes. Yes it does." A pause, then she slightly shifted her body to face him. It was clearly reluctant on her part, but it felt as if there was something she needed to say. "Can I ask you a question?" "Sure." "What are you mixing in that beaker?" His skin was sucked of all color in that instant, and he stopped stirring. When did she notice that? "Uh, what Bea..." He suddenly got an idea, pulling the beaker up on the table to continue stirring it. "Oh! You mean this beaker. This is to help my friend with a science project he's doing over spiders. I'm just making him this cool mixture he can use to weave a web on his poster board. He's got a thing for the way a presentation goes." The girl raised an eyebrow and looked at the beaker. "Well, I hope you want it to be watery and acidic and messy, because you've added too many pints of chlorine enzymes." He shrank back, eyes too wide to even dare blinking at her. He looked from the beaker to her and them back to the beaker with worry. "I did?" He inspected the mixer when he pulled it up from the white mass. He must've messed up somewhere in the process, or he misread the formula again. "Yes. See that lack of grey spots?" She pointed at what he had displayed to their eyes, the comers of her lips lifting into something of a smirk. " That's not a good a sign. Adding in something basic and powdery should cancel enough of the enzymes to work out for you friend." "Um...I..." Peter began. "Oh." She held out a gloved hand to him, the smirk on her face turning up more. She was clearly enjoying this. A lot. " I'm Samantha Summers." He half heartedly grasped her hand and didn't notice the oddly warm feel of her palm. Peter wished he could say that he wasn't a little jealous or surprised about her high level of intelligence, but how could anyone speak after something like that happened? He looked down at his beaker of approaching, acidic doom and sighed at her. "Nice to meet you."
Page 2Samantha didn't expect her day at school to turn out so...satisfying, by fifth period no less. She still didn't like moving or this school in particular, but there were some pretty nice points in the day. Like the fact that no one excluding the teachers had said much to her, leaving her alone and not bringing up the subject of her gloves. There was this one boy, Pete or something; he was the only one to say anything other than hi, but he was...clearly one of the weirder students. Possibly one of the one of the smarter ones too, until she wowed him with a brief suggestion in Chemistry. Man, from the look on his face, she guessed that no one could improve on whatever formulas he thought up. She hadn't had a sense of gratification like this back in Westview, even if this was a small thing. And, as much she hated to say it...he was an okay guy. She didn't warm up to him entirely, but at least the first person she'd really talked to was nice. He was easy enough to conversate with and from the looks of it, wasn't too far down on the social scale to be laughed at by everyone in the school. If her mom asked her about any new friends, then Samantha could at least say she'd met a nerd(ish) kid. But since she was kinda smarter than him...that made her nerd(ish) and a hypocrite at the same time. Oh well. Now it was 7th period: lunch to be specific. Sam took notice of most of her peers choosing to sit down before joining into a huge line for lunch, leaving their backpacks behind to mark their eating territory. It gave her ample time to be one of the first in line, but also enough to be stared at by a few guys and girls. She didn't know what they could be thinking of her, but it would be amazing if they didn't stare at her hair like she was Medusa. It couldn't be that abnormal for everyone to whisper about it or exchanges glances. The girl payed no more attention to them, picking up a chicken sandwich box and examining the box. "Well...at least it looks edible." She shrugged before picking up a small cart of fries and a regular milk carton. Entering her lunch number was a small difficulty; it would take a while before she could fully memorize it, and until then she kept it as a picture on her phone. The real problem came afterwards, ensuing her leave of the lunch line altogether... Finding a lunch table. "...Where did everyone come from?" She muttered in exasperation as she walked and stared at the massive sea of bodies. Countless students overcrowding the seats to be with friends and often yelling across the table just to talk to other friends,who were doing the exact same thing in another direction. She was sure more than half of them already had lunch in another period! Where was she supposed to sit now, when there were enough adolescents here to block an entire table from view? The search took her down one row to the farthest wall, but didn't provide any results other than a few stares and at least one individual stifling a laugh. Frustration building within her, Samantha leaned against the wall and took another wide scan of the cafeteria. Asking any of the rude students for a spot was out of the question. Moving into a classroom wasn't possible either. Maybe sitting against the wall wouldn't be a bad idea; it wasn't against school rules and there wasn't anyplace else to sit. The girl sighed,set her non-edible items down next to her feet and jumped ten feet out of her skin when a girl seemed to appear out of thin air next to her. "Hi." The girl scratched her messy, dark brown hair and leaned against the wall. Her voice was unbelievably wry and bored, very similar to her own expression. "Peter begged me to get you to sit with us at our table...You are the new girl, right?" "Er, Yeah." Sam blinked rapidly, casting a look down at the girl's boots and noting how noisy they looked. Was she a ninja? "I'm her. I mean--I'm new." "Alright. Come on, then." She said that briefly, and left Sam behind without really waiting to see if she would follow. Perplexed and left with no other choice, the partially red-haired girl slowly followed her strange quarry all the way to the end of the left side of the cafeteria. A lone table sat there, the only occupant at the moment being Peter, who was scrolling through something very lengthy on his phone. The boy took notice of her quickly and made a face stuck between a full smile and nothing. "Hey again. I know this isn't the best place to sit down, but it's better than the floor, right?" "The floor doesn't have losers," The girl deadpanned and sat, at a distance, next to him. " like you." Samantha pursed her lips. "If this table is for losers, why are you here?" "No friends. Same as you, if you aren't counting Petey here." The girl explained with the same level of boredom in her voice, though taking a bite of one of her steak fingers seemed to lighten her expression. So much so that Samantha was starting to regret not getting a few of those when she had the chance. "He said your name was Samantha, right? I'm Michelle." "Hmm. I don't suppose I'm not the only other one that sits here...?" "Until my friend gets back from being sick, you are." Peter said. "Speaking of being places, I never really asked about where you came from. Care to share?" The girl thought over it for a long moment, mostly to provide time for her to eat. "Oregon." Michelle actually made a different face; halfway surprised. "You came all the way from Oregon?" "Mmm-hmm." Sam couldn't help but vent just slightly since she asked the question. It felt pretty good to do just that. "My mom says it's for business and because of the building she bought down here. Thanks to its importance and popularity here, she needs to be in New York and of course...I'm dragged along for the ride. The building is so big, they're barely halfway done moving their things out of it!" "What building is that?" Peter asked. "Huh? Oh, I don't know. I wasn't really paying attention to that when she abruptly said we were moving. Anyways, we're not even in a house yet. Just some apartment in Queens, really small and not that much space." She groaned semi-loudly and let her head fall backwards in the process. "It is a complete nightmare. This school has been the only break for me, and even this place is bad." "Has anyone been throwing pick-up lines at you?" The only boy at the table asked in a mock quizzical way. "I know I'd be done with the school if that happened." Samantha snorted, but then stopped herself with a lingering smile. He was definitely hard not to smile at, and it was hard to imagine how he was at this table in the first in the first place. Not to say Michelle was a loser; she really wasn't. "No, but...ugh! Everyone has been staring at my hair all day today, like it's gonna leap off my scalp and strangle someone." "It looks like bacon to me. " Michelle shrugged. "But really cool bacon. The kind to make people jealous, because their bacon isn't as good as yours." "...Thanks. I guess." "So no one has commented on your hair or the gloves?" Peter pointed with a narrowed eye and a raised eyebrow. "If so, let me be the first to ask...what's up with that?" Samantha snuck down a swallow and subconsciously caused her hands to clasp together. The heat in her palms had grown larger by now, enough to make the wool of her gloves feel weird and somewhat cooked. Sh!t; she should've played attention to it throughout the day--questions would rise if her hands suddenly caught fire or smelled like smoke. "Um, it's a really bad skin rash. It's super big and its on my palms and the back of my hands." "Really?" Michelle's voice tilted with interest as her hand reached forward, plucking at the wrist of the glove. "Let me see. Is it--" "No!" Samantha pulled her hands into her lap abruptly and finished. "I'm...uh... really conscious about it and I don't want anyone to see it. Plus it gets super itchy when exposed to air and it turns red and stuff. My doctor said it might be contagious too, so..yep." "Ew." To her relief, the girl didn't pry any further and Peter didn't do much more than apprehensively stare at her. "So, either of you know where Spanish 1 is for Misteeeeer...Jackson? His room number is blurred out on the picture for some reason." Peter piped up almost immediately. "Room 512. I have him next period, funny enough...or, I would have him. I get to leave a little early because of my job." "He's got a job as Tony Stark's intern." Michelle added to explain things, while Peter tried not to look too proud of himself. "I guess he goes up in that tower everyday to build suits and fight with the Avengers and stuff." The redhead gave him a lopsided smirk. "Oh really? Think you could lend me an Iron Man suit sometime?" "Ha Ha. I just do intern work. A whole lot of it. " He stated with a satisfied smirk thrown at Samantha. "But I tell ya...it's a really fun job." "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE~HAAAAAAAAAH!" Spider-man landed on side of the building with no trouble, his fingertips slowing his descent down the glass side to a halt in seconds. After those few seconds, he shot up into the air again and set his white-lensed eyes on a stone gargoyle nearby. His webshooter caused a thick white rope to shoot out like a bullet, splatting onto the face of the ornament and remaining strong as he swung his weight forward on it. Letting go of the webline sent him flying through the air again--high enough to disturb a flock of pigeons and earn another whooping laugh from him. Peter was always reminded of how much fun web-swinging was when he aimed his wrist. The way the wind roared past him when he gained speed, the sudden drop when gravity caught up to him, the height records he broke all the time--it was all an exhilarating feeling that couldn't be beat by anything else. And the best part? This wasn't even the highlight of the job. His lenses narrowed at the ground and gave him brilliant binocular vision; the streets suddenly looked like he was inches from it, as if he were standing on the ground amongst the sea of people and cars.He could see a guy walking a pretty big Labrador, going past a woman with a very expensive looking business suit, who dodged a collision with an old lady, who just got her purse snatched by another dude, who walked past a kid and his...wait a second. Spider-man began to swing in the man's direction and cursed under his breath when he disappeared around the corner of the sidewalk--This guy must've done some planning for this. Of course, if Peter were a thief, he'd want to have a means of evading Spider-man before he even saw him. When the webhead finally perched on the edge of the building, he heard an engine rev into life and saw the purse snatcher burst out of the alleyway at the back of the building. Nearby civilians shrieked and dodged the car as best they could, some of them coming dangerously close to being clipped. Peter managed to yank them out of the way while an entertained look spread underneath his mask. "A guy with backup plans? This is gonna be great." He used a webline to catapult himself at quick speeds toward the car while the man swerved around the corner of a building at the end of the street. Peter tapped on his window to get his attention. "Hey! Hang on! I think you're my uber!" The car veered towards the left in an effort to brush him off with a lamppost, allowing it to get ahead of him as he had to dodge the metal. He used a webline to try propelling himself at the back of the car again, but his highly perceptive eyes discovered that the car was about to hit a line of people crossing the street. Aw, Sh#t! Okay, hang on... Spider-man pressed a finger at the nozzle of his webshooter, angling it so that several strands of webbing latched onto the shoulders of the civilians. He lept a few feet ahead of the car and used a somersault to help yank everyone high enough to avoid a head-on collision, earning a chorus of screams for his efforts. Just seconds before he landed on the street, his aim created a giant net that caught everyone safely before they were to land in a painful way. It actually impressed himself, if he were honest. "Everyone okay up there?" He called aloud while the civilians tried to make sense of what happened. Tire screeching drew his attention once more. "Uh, okay. Just climb down from the left! Stay safe! No need to thank me!" The chase resumed once again, but the thief seemed to pick up on Peter's need to keep people out of the way and immediately targeted the sidewalks to slow him down more. The boy gave a frustrated growl at having to leap ahead several times and pull people out of his destructive path. He would have at least attempted to stop the car with his bare hands, but the screaming lady or dude in front always took up that time. He was huffing and puffing after a full minute, and admittedly started to lose track of the car after the seventeenth citizen he rescued. But after making a specific turn, the car discovered that there weren't any bodies to threaten or any pets to distract the vigilante with. Finally. Peter smirked underneath the mask. Now I can put the breaks on--wha?! Thirty feet ahead of the speeding car was a lone figure, crossing the street and busying themselves with their hands for some reason. When his lenses narrowed, he could recognize the figure as Samantha, the girl from school. The thief seemed to notice her too, bexcuse the car lurched forward at a faster speed. Peter gasped as he realized he was too far back to pull her out of the way, and he frantically shot a Web line at the bumper on the vehicle. The chappy thing fell off and almost smacked him in the head. "HEY!" He shouted at the top of his lungs and tried shooting another line. "WATCH OUT! GET OUT OF THE WAY!" Things were a blur after he yelled that-- in a span of four seconds Samantha looked up in fear to see the car, the car came within a couple of feet of her and then she held up her arms with a shriek. Then there was a blinding orange light, then a lazer sound and the next thing he knew, the car was flipping up in the air--twenty feet or more-- and was hurting down onto an oncoming car. Spider-man's wrist propelled him forward in time to spray another web-net that caught the car inches from smashing the roof of the other car. The woman inside the latter sighed in relief, and her children waved to the vigilante eagerly. After waving back, Peter tore off the driver's door of the Thief. "Geez, dude! You suck at driving! I gotta find your driving instructor so I can smack his head!" "What was that?!" The thief seemed more focused on how he ended up airborne rather than being caught by him. "I almost blew up in here, man! She came outta nowhere!" "Serves you right, too." Was the only response he got before a Web splattered over the Thief's face. Still, his words made him look at the front of the car, where a large black don't awaited it. It looked like almost the entire front of the car had been burned away and a smouldering husk was left. Peter scrutinized the damage in shock. How did she do that? She'd have to a flamethrower the size of a minivan to... The science driven part of his brain shut off as another thought popped up. Hey. Where is she, anyway?
Page 3"GyAH!" She ripped what remained of her incinerated gloves off her hands and catapulted them into the pavement. "What the f=ck?! What the f@ck?!" She shrieked looking at the glowing centers of her palms as she rushed to the doors at the bottom of the apartment, vibrating with hot energy and smelling of smoke. A few staff members inside cast her brief looks but chalked up her freaked out appearance to being a teenager. Samantha was thankful for that; who knows how many other people saw her obliterate that car? How did she do that?! She jogged up several flights of stairs on pure adrenaline, not touching the rails or herself or anything for fear of what might happen. By now, however, her palms had reduced themselves back to her normal skin color and didn't seem to be glowing anymore. She didn't chance it though, and she even hesitated when she reached her door. Swiftly yanking the key out of her pocket as if it might catch fire any second, Samantha used it to open the lock on the door hurriedly. To her dismay, her mother was adjusting a potted plant in the small living room and could fully see her as she hurried inside. "Oh, hey, Hon. I know, I know, I've touched this thing a dozen times since we got here. I just..." Her mother suddenly seemed to notice her heavy breathing, the sweating and the frantic look in Samantha's eyes. "...Samantha? Are you okay?" The answer was given in the form of Samantha rushing to her room in another fit of panic, so her mother followed her in and only stopped at the doorway. "Sammy, just breathe. Take off your backpack." Samantha stood still and simply stared at Celest for the longest time, but she eventually did as requested. When she took off the backpack, she sat down on the side of her bed with a sniffle. The sound made Celest tense slightly. "Just relax. Take a good breath." It didn't erase the shock of her discoveries, but Samantha did calm down just enough to not move away when her mother sat next to her. "You don't normally run in here like that--whats going on?" Samantha didn't say anything. "...Come on, I'm just...trying to help. Is it school? Did something happen at school?" Lying wasn't something she liked doing to her mother, but in the case it might be necessary. The girl searched her memory for any excuse and finally came up with something that occurred at school. "They,um, they talked about my hair. A lot today." It was something she could take, but it would be a believable excuse. "I just...I wanted to get here as fast as I could." "Oh. " Celest sounded downright appalled at the thought of anyone harassing her child over her natural hair color. Under different circumstances, Samantha might have smiled at this. "That can expect a call very soon so I can report these bullies." Samantha tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I-I don't really know their names." "Well, we can at least make boundaries. Such as saying only nice things about your beautiful hair." Celest sighed and placed an arm on Sam's shoulder, squeezing it comfortingly. "I really am sorry about forcing us here so randomly. If they could somehow pick up the building and carry it back home, I would've tried that first. If I had known this would happen, I would have chosen another school. " "Yeah. I'll... be fine where I am. " For some reason, Samantha felt the need to defend her new school despite criticising it just moments earlier. "Um, I-I made some friends. Peter and Michelle." As expected, her mom honed in on the name Peter and smirked softly. "Peter? Is he a cute Peter?" "Mom." "Just joking. Are they nice friends? Did they say anything about your hair?" She asked. Samantha mentally recalled the conversation. "Michelle said she thought my hair looked like bacon. But it was in a good way. She's weird." Celest pursed her lips. "Well, its definitely the first time I've heard that one. No other good compliments? Anything else interesting happen today?" "No." She said quickly, willing herself not to look down at her hands yet. " I...I'm just really tired right now. " "Oh, well that's fine, Sammy." Celest stood and stalked over to the doorway, once again stopping to offer a smile at her daughter. A smile was given right back, even if it did look more tired by the second. "You rest up. I was thinking later we could get a burger from somewhere. Or pizza, if you want?" "Pizza does sound better." Samantha nodded. "Pizza it is." "Come on! Just one call back or something." Peter said this mostly to himself, frustrated with the lack of feedback from Happy and Tony. He sent like a billion messages yesterday about Samantha and her weird powers, but not one of them said a thing about it. He expected Mr.Stark, an Avenger for crying out loud, to at least say something like...I got this or web her up. Not that Peter wanted her to get caught or anything. It was a pretty cool power to have, in his opinion. The teen wouldn't deny that he felt a bit excited and anxious about attending classes with another super person. Maybe he should say something about it? No, that would give away his identity and she does not look like the type to remain quiet about that. But he couldn't just...Like, should he arrest her or whatever? Blab to Mr.Stark about it? " wassup." A casual Michelle elbowed him on the way past. " 'sup." He said back. Mr.Stark wasn't even listening to his calls; no one had for the past eight months. Peter was starting to become doubtful of what the Avenger saw in him; was he doubting him because he was just fifteen? Nah. Couldn't be because of his age. The Vision was less than three years old after all. It was probably because of his lack of experience in team stuff. Spider-man had always been a lone wolf in the shadows of the night, bringing justice without help. If he wanted to be on the same level as other superheroes, he had to probe himself. As a leader, at least. Showing Mr.Stark how good he was at leading could work out nicely in the future. More missions and stuff. Light bulb. He had to strain his facial muscles to keep the smile he had from growing, especially since smiling in a lunch line was a bad idea. It all made perfect sense; Samantha clearly had great power , but from what he'd seen there was no training if any. It was a win-win situation-- Spider-man takes her under his wing, shows her the ropes and then Iron man comes rolling in to give him an Avengers position! Not to mention that he could get a sidekick out of this whole thing, and he always wanted a sidekick before, just like in the comics. Sure, she wasn't the spitting image of Robin when it came down to personality and all, but it was nothing he could fix. And convincing her would be easy! Who wouldn't want to be a super hero? Peter rubbed his hands together slightly like the mad genius he was. "This is gonna be amazing." "What's gonna be amazing?" "Whuzzah?!" Peter whirled around and got an eyeful of Samantha blinking at his surprise. Aside from a red t-shirt and leather gloves, she looked basically the same as yesterday. "Geez. You made my heart skip a beat." "Aw, that was the cutest flirt I've ever seen. " The girl cooed sarcastically, pursing her lips in a faux flattered smile. She looked like she was in a better mood than yesterday. "And I've been standing behind you for the past six minutes. You snapped at your phone and them got quiet and then said this is gonna be amazing." Peter blinked twice at her before finally making a nod. "Uh, yeah. That was about my Stark internship. I missed a call earlier...saying that I might get a new partner to work with. She's new in Queens." "Really? That's cool, I guess. Did they say when that would happen?" She asked, her interest piqued. Peter shrugged coyly, crossing arms as he entered the mad scientist mood again. "They dunno. They said I might be giving her an interview soon. Juuust have to wait and see what she says about it." Author's Note A short chapter building up to an awesome proposal.
Job Offer"Here's the ticket, little lady. Hang on to it, in case you need it. You'll be in car 423B." Samantha pocketed the ticket dutifuly and readjusted her backpack's straps so that she didn't risk losing by way of dropping. It was odd to be so stiff and uncertain about a simple train ride back to her neighborhood, but it was only her second day doing this. A train felt infinitely different than an averge car ride, where people you actually recognized rode with you. People from all walks of life and all types of ages crammed themselves together on the train and eyed her the same way everyone else at school did. She didn't like it, but unless her mom was quitting her job, there was no way this would be ending. At the very least, she could start to learn a tips about riding a train; tips that could benefit her later in the future. For one, she'd have to get to the subway station much earlier than two minutes before departure or she would lose any good seats to some greasy dude or a prissy woman. Nothing but luck got her a spacious seat right next to the back door of the train, where an empty seat sat to the right and tother the front of her. A college-aged gentlemen chose to stand when he boarded, leaning against the metal pole and picking bits of dirt out of the wheels of his skateboard. Samantha flinched as some of the dirt pieces hit her face but found more trouble from a fancily dressed woman sitting in front of her with a child no older than eight perhaps. Given her attire and the way she was practically yelling into the phone, Samantha found that the woman reminded her of her mother. The teen didn't care to listen on the conversation, especially when the woman's daughter took notice of her. "Your hair is different." The girl pointed out, and quite literally to. Fed up with the insults about her hair color, She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, kid. It is." "I like it." The girl smiled widely, showing a missing tooth with hesitation. "It's pretty." "Oh. Um...thanks." She wasn't sure what else to say to that, but the little girl's mom had a sentence at the ready, even when in the middle of a complex phone call. "Don't talk to strangers honey." Her gaze turned to Samantha, rather disapproving and cynical for some reason. "That goes for you too. Now, Linda, no. That's not what..." She rolled her eyes and turned her focus off of the woman. Instead, she gazed out of the window at the world underneath the rays of the powerful sun and if the train moved close enough she could spot tiny specks of people too. The clothed ants were walking along the street or getting into their cars or just standing at a phone booth. Not a single person was standing still; everyone was busily moving and busily doing...things. Even some of the buildings, especially the more impressive ones, seemed to be alive with the faint sight of movement behind those windows. In the distance, some five miles or so, stood a building with a distinct slope at the top and an easily recognizable tightly to it. The Avengers tower. Anyone could name it just by glancing at the huge A at the top of it. When it first showed up publicly, Samantha wasn't sure what to think of who owned the place and what they started doing around the world. On one hand they were saving people and at the same they caused collateral damage. It was kinda like some ironic form of balance, keeping both aspects of them in view of the world so that most people didn't know what to think of them. At least they knew how to control their abilities most of the time...No. She didn't have those weird beam abilities anymore, and she shouldn't compare herself to the likes of Thor or The Hulk. She could be normal again with the abilities now gone, and she'd only see another superhuman from far away distances. Hopefully for a long time. An upside down head suddenly appeared in the window, made to ovalish by a tight red mask. Her eyes widened as she recognized the black web pattern on his face and the expressive black lenses that looked straight at her. Before she could really gasp, he held up a small sticky note for her to see and gestured for her to read it. She swallowed a tad nervously and after looking around to see the unobservant passengers on board, leaned forward hesitantly to read what was written in Sharpie: Meet me in the first alley you see when you get off the train She opened her mouth to try asking him why he wanted her of all people to meet him, let alone in some disgusting alley, but he turned the note around: T.T.F.N: Tata for now, Samantha! Then he was gone, leaping from the window and disappearing into the air. She snarled in frustration; an answer to one of the many questions bubbling inside her would be nice. How could he expect her to suddenly meet him somewhere, when she barely knew anything about him except that he was...common around Queens? To top it all off, her curiousity was highly peaked now; she was starting to want to find out what he wanted. He could've broken into the train and snatched her, so he was being nice and civilized. Samantha sighed. Took her long enough for her to get here! Peter wasn't expecting to wait an extra ten minutes for her to arrive, and the excitement of being able to talk to her was wearing off. He spent the first three minutes reciting what he would say, from the greeting to the end if she agreed to his idea. Then a black cat came along on the roof somehow, and he was distracted for the remaining time by playing around with it. Around the end of the tenth minute, however, is when he heard his soon to be partner in the alley. "Okay! This is the FIFTH Alley I've been in! Are you gonna show up or what?" Oh,yeah. He had said the first alley. Peter gave the cat's head one last scratch and then peered over the edge of the building; Samantha was down there, alright. Seeing the girl so impatient gave him a better idea for an introduction and he aimed a wrist down at her. Seconds later he yanked on the webline attached to her shoulders and she was sent flying upwards with a shriek of surprise. He contained a laugh long enough for his hands to shoot out at the right time and grasp her by the waist. Then to finish, he twirled around and set her down on the rooftop with him. "Aaaand she sticks the landing!" Spidey announced, clapping like a one-man audience while Samantha briefly hyperventilated and stared at him with wide eyes. "Gotta say, that was awesome. Amazing acrobatics. I give it a 10 out of 5." "You...Y...What the hell is your problem?!" She snapped lowly, briefly looking around to look at her surroundings. She seemed less excited to see him, he noticed. "You don't just randomnly pull someone up on a roof! There's whiplash--a list of things you have to worry about." His lenses made a motion similar to eye-rolling. "I did not go at the speed at which you'd suffer whiplash. If I wanted to, you'd...uh, your gloves are..." She looked down at her leather clad hands and saw the smoking holes in the palms. He guessed that her powers currently worked on the danger she could sense or maybe surprise, kinda like how his spider-sense worked." Aw, sh!t. These were my favorite gloves." "Yeah, that sucks. But they had ketchup on them from the lunch table, anyway. Anywho, it's time for introductions!" He recited, crossing his arms heroically. "I am Spider-man, Defender of Queens and stuff." "Yeah, I know that." She removed the gloves and stuffed them in her pocket, before once again wearing a look of suspicion. "What do you want with me?" "Ah, yes. The truth behind our meeting. What could it be about? What could be about...? Oh yeah. Those." He pointed at her smoking hands. "Remember yesterday when those babies flipped a car like you were flipping a coin?" Most of her cynical side seemed disappear shortly after that, and she took a step back worriedly. "...I wasn't trying to! I swear I wasn't--The car was just there and--" "Pfft, I'm not here to arrest you or something like that. If anything, I should thank you; the driver was a total lunatic and a serious thief. You stopped him and fast too, so it's all good. That's actually why I brought you here." He paused and nodded at her. "I want you to be my sidekick, my partner-in-crime! The final piece to a dynamic duo, that sort of thing!" "...wait. what?" "I want you to be my help in keeping the city clean!" Peter felt a sense of Deja vu and noted that he was kind've in the same position as Mr.Stark not that long ago. That meant he was on the right track, since Peter readily agreed to joining Iron man."Of course we'll have to make up a costume for you, something practical, you know? You cant have any stark-made suits like mine--sorry. And I've already got a cool name for you!" Samantha frowned at him. "I'm not going to do anything remotely related to what you do." "...come again?" Peter seemed to deflate slightly. "Uh, Spider-man, right? Maybe you have me confused for someone else, and that's why we're here right now. Or maybe you really, really got your hopes up." She explained with a deadpan look. "But I'm not a superhero and I don't think I want to be." Spidey shrugged as if this were the most surprising thing to hear, which it was. Maybe it was because of his long time as an idolized hero, but he couldnt see anything bad about it. "Who wouldn't want to be one of the good guys? You got powers, anyway! Use them in a responsible yet cool way." "Just because I have whatever they are...It doesn't make me a superhero. For all I know this only temporary anyway."Samantha retorted, subconsciously clasping her hands together. "My life's already been changed enough as it is. I just want things to be as normal as possible for me." "A little late for that, don't you think?" Peter remarked before he could stop talking. His Spidey-persona had a tendency to do that sometimes. "You..."She glared at him fiercely, cutting herself off for only a moment. "Look,Can you put me back down now and leave me alone?" He was losing her, and his only chance at promotion in the superhero biz! How did it fail so horribly?! Peter desperately gestured to the majority of Queens that they could see. "But...It's be awesome traveling through all of this! I'td be awesome saving lives everyday and making a difference! Can't you just give it a chance--" "No! " An involuntary glance from both of them noticed that her hands were glowing again, this time red instead of yellow. With a gasp, the red returned back to her normal skin color. She reluctantly looked back at him. "Just please let me down." Peter sighed. He supposed that he didn't really have a choice in the matter, and clearly couldn't change her mind about it. "Yeah. Sure." He pouted as he walked over to the edge of the roof and cast a line down to the hard ground. Nice going, Peter--now we're back to square one again. The young man secured the end and gestured for her to approach the way down. "Hey, uh...thanks for at least trying to meet me." Samantha paused, but didn't stare at him as he continued."I...really hope that power does go away with time like you wish." As she began to descend down the line, he heard her mumble in agreement.
Loose Lips make PartnershipsWhat a crazy, crummy morning for Samantha. It was cloudy today, possibly meaning to break into a light shower or two when the time came. It brought dappled light down onto the sidewalk she trekked, amongst several other people that had done little more than glance at the sky. The only one who didn't seem to be as melancholic as everyone else was a little girl, the same one from the train to be precise, and that was merely because she was busy playing with a small doll. It was a toy marked with red coloring and black lines to resemble a tiny, crude version of Spider-man. Samantha groaned and didn't look down at the kid again. That Spider-man. He was the reason she'd been up for most of the night, thinking over the offer she turned down. She didn't regret making the firm decision, yet she couldn't help but think about what things could have been like if she said yes. Maybe with more usage, her 'powers' would eventually fade away into nothingness and she'd be normal again. It would have been nice to know the extent of her temperature; to see just how hot her palms could really get. Maybe she could be like Iron man, with his repulsor rays. Listen to yourself. You sound like some optimistic kid. She agreed with that thought. People like Spider-man didn't want her so they could teach to her control her strength--they wanted it for their 'hero' cause. Hell, the only reason that she'd been noticed was because she flipped a car in the street. It wouldn't work; she didn't like the idea of punching someone, let alone a crook who could easily kill her or even shoot her.She wasn't an urban myth with bulletproof skin, after all. But all the logic in the world couldn't stop her from imagining that kind of lifestyle. Samantha tried to envision herself in a funky, spandex costume and shuddered--What a horrific, embarrassing thought. But when she thought about helping people--maybe stopping house fires or saving citizens from the wake of a bridge collapsing--she found that it was easy to think about. At least with work like that, she'd never have to punch anyone. The group of sidewalkers began to shift themselves on the street to cross it, and Samantha checked her phone for the time. In a little over half an hour, school would start. Hopefully the train would be ready and waiting when she arrived at the station. Halfway onto the other side of the street, she saw the light turn green and frowned at its speed in changing color. A car honked behind a big truck and the deiver, who was reading a newspaper boredly, pressed into the gas. His large eighteen wheeler lurched forward with surprising speed, it's driver never removing the paper from his eyes. Time seemed to slow down for Samantha when she saw the little girl in the middle of the road, reaching for her fallen toy, eyes widening at the approaching vehicle. The teenager gasped herself and stretched out a distant hand to reach for her. She was too far away with not enough time to run and pull her out of the way! A thick tendril of orange energy suddenly exploded outwards from her palm and shot at the girl with a surprising quickness. She blinked with a dumbfounded gaze as the tendril wrapped swiftly around the girl's middle and tugged her over to the sidewalk just as the truck crushed the area the kid had once been in. Samantha watched the coil dissipate into thin air and then the face of the child as it contorted into a look of pure awe and surprise. The teen swallowed, finally comprehending what had just hapened. "Are you okay?!" She asked her nervously, wringing her hands around each other as if it might prevent another random outburst of energy. "I-I'm sorry if I hurt you, I just--" "Joan!" The voice of the mother cut into the conversation, before the real deal scowled to a kneeling halt in front of her daughter. As one might expect, she scanned the girl skeptically. "Joan! What are you doing back here, away from mommy? I told you yesterday that you don't talk to strangers." The girl, Joan it would seem, nodded sheepishly but gratefully at Samantha as she began. "I know, but I left Ms.Annise in the street by accident so I went back to get her. Then she pulled me out of the way of the big car!" Joan's mother gasped in shock, carefully looking over her daughter a second time and then giving a surprised look to Samantha. "Thank you. I've always told her to keep up with me on the sidewalk, but...I shouldn't move so fast to begin with." She nodded with a shaky sigh. "Just...Thank you." The kid grinned even wider at her now. The teen stood stiffly at the attention she was getting; apparently bystanders could overhear the car rescue and were sending approving looks from afar or nearby. Samantha looked at each face, anxiety written over her own, but gradually adopted something more proud and pleased. She'd gained a feeling that she knew would remain with her all the way to school and perhaps the way back home. It was something very difficult to explain, but it felt too real to be ignored. She'd saved someone, without the need for violence, and it felt...good. Pretty good, indeed. "Just like that? Just no?" Peter rolled his eyes. "Of course not just like that. She had her reasons, and all but...it was still a good offer. I mean, Mr. Stark doesn't just offer an internship to anybody, y'know." "You sure?" Ned asked with a faux tone of curiousity. "Didn't he hire you?" "Man, shut up. She had...qualifications like me that would've landed her an easy job." Peter explained somewhat truthfully. It never got old; making up stories parallel to his Spider-man life by using the term 'Stark Internship'. "It's not like there would've been anything too hard for her, you know? Just the usual stuff that people do in an internship." "What do people do in an internship?" "Uh...internship stuff?" "Fair enough...Is it bad that it feels like a Friday to me?" Ned rubbed at his eyes tiredly, evidence that he hadn't had much rest since 'recovering' from his sickness. The doctors had him off for so many days that Peter thought he might actually be switching schools, but a surprise return said otherwise. "It feels pretty bad." "Ned, it is Friday." Peter laughed softly. "What type of medicine are you taking, man?" "The deep stuff, if I'm being honest with you. " He groaned. "I didn't know Claritin even came in a liquid version, that is just too weird." "Really? A liquid? What's that taste like?" "Piss. Literal Piss." "You know what Piss tastes like?" Ned chuckled weakly and elbowed his side, earning more laughter from Peter. The goofing around left them unaware of where they were walking, which happened to be on the left side of the hall towards the corner. By the time Peter realised he was about to turn on the corner, he ran straight into a slightly shorter, feminine body and nearly knocked her over. "Oh, sh!t! Sorry, my bad m--...oh." He blinked in mild surprise at the familar yellow and red hair. "Uh, hey, Sorry Sam. Ned, this is--uh--the new girl I mentioned. Samantha, this is Ned." Before Ned could really say anything, Samantha held up a finger. "Hi, Ned! I'm sorry to interrupt you, but could I talk to Peter for a sec, please? I've been waiting for the perfect time to talk to him all day long!" Peter tilted his head. She seemed a lot more excited than he knew her to be in the past two days, and that was saying a lot. He looked to Ned for his reaction, and the shorter teen shrugged at him. "Sure. Go ahead." He elbowed Peter again. "Jackpot, Tiger." Peter's skin turned slightly red, but he shrugged off the odd feeling to focus on his failed partner in crime-fighting. "Uh, yo. What's up? Anything you wanted to hear about our Spanish homework or...?" "I changed my mind about the whole superhero thing. Well, kinda. " Samantha leaned against the wall and be her bottom lip as if trying to find the right words to say. "I mean, I have certain terms that I want to discuss. I don't have that many terms, but I just wanted to...you know, let you know." Despite this being sudden music to Peter's ears, he had no idea why she was telling him this and not Spider-man...not that Spider-man would know to ever have a second meeting."I'm...not sure I follow. What do you mean, superhero thing?" Her eyebrow quirked upward. "Eh? Yesterday on the roof? We spoke about being your partner and all? I said no? Just stop me when you start remembering. Waaait." She leaned forward a bit too far into his personal space, staring intently at her AC/DC shirt. "How does it work? Are you wearing the Spider-man suit under the shirt? Or is it in your backpack?" "I-I don't get it." He glanced around nervously; she was talking really, really loudly around all these people. "Why would I have a--uh-- Spider-man suit? " "Because you're Spider-man, maybe?" "Me?" Peter adopted a dry, but clearly nervous laugh to drown out her statement. A few girls gossiping glanced at them but rolled their eyes and continued to talk in the background. He stasted to sigh in relief, but cut that off with another laugh. "Ha, you're funny. I didn't take you for a comedian." "I didn't take you for someone who could flip a car with one hand! And yet here we are." Peter swallowed at her expression--she knew he was trying to blow this off. "There's no need to be secretive! After all, you blew that yesterday on the roof when you said, and I qoute: 'Your gloves had ketchup on them from the lunch table, anyway'. " Well, sh!t. "And I know for a fact that that it wasn't Michelle in that suit, even if your voice is a bit...feminine." Samantha remarked and caused Peter to roll his eyes. "I just wanted you to know that I changed my mind sooo...What happens next?" Peter narrowed his eyes and pointed a finger in her face as angrily as he could fake it. "I am not Spider-man--so sorry, but you should look somewhere else. " To continue his annoyed, angered facade, he started to walk past the disappointed girl. He paused just behind her, head turned halfway. "Heck, me being Spider-man is a stupid idea. If I were him, I'd probably be found after school at that Mexican Bakery down the left side block. But that's IF I was actually him. So chances are he won't even be there." Samantha blinked in surprise and turned to look at Peter, but he was already half way down the next hallway. Author's Note Now onward to the other story updates! *rides fictional horse to another story*
Dawn of a sidekick“You boys are late.” He scoffed at the bearded shrimp, or at least, he seemed to like it compared with his taller partner. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that the dark-skinned guy in the jacket wasn’t going to do much talking. “You said 3. Never said 3 am or 3 pm.” He snorted in response. The guy leaned back against the white van, arms crossed. “You mean to tell me that you came out here at 3 am and then wait?” “Shaddup and show us what you got. It took hours to get the parole trackers off of us.” O’Hirn glanced at Marko with a raised eyebrow. “And it was harder ta get yer pay down here too.” “Ooh, Gruff. Alright, I got ya some priceless stuff. Somethin’ for both of you.” The guy took a brief glance around for spying eyes, then reached into the large pockets of his jacket. His left hand fished out the world’s most detailed looking brass knuckles--only they weren't brass. They had small rivulets running in circular motions on the knuckles, like veins for a hand. Dark gold metal surrounded the purple grooves and highlighted their glow. O’hirn would know that look from everywhere--after that hole in the sky opened up, everyone knew what this stuff was. He caught it as it was thrown his way, listening as the guy blabbered on. “ Check it--that thing is small for travel convenience. It may take time to charge between hits, but it can knock a motorcycle back through the air, man. That Hulk level stuff.” Marko sneered as he tossed him the pay; namely a very thick stack of cash. “And what about me?” The guy opened the back door of the van and reeled in a metal baseball bat. Marko examined it closer when it was tossed into his hands, tapping the alien collar at the base of it's handle. “What’s this thing supposed to do? It don't look fancy.” The guy grinned. “Trust me, you gonna want to see for yourself when you go up against someone.” O’hirn exchanged a nod of satisfaction with Marko. “Yeah, well...We got someone in mind.” “Then happy hunting.” Okay. The Italian bakery on the left block. Sam repeated in her head and was glad that there weren't that many restaurants in the area, let alone ones centered around italian food. In fact, she couldn’t call it a restaurant based on what she observed; it was more like a gas station without the gas...A convenience store. A dollar tree-styled place that sold burritos and sandwiches for the bakery, and then random items likes chips or skittles to fill the aisles. She stood in front of its glass doors and swallowed, looking up at the title: Delmar’s Deli-Grocery. No turning back now, I guess. It was a pretty average store on the inside. The small rectangle of concrete floors was highlighted by small aisles of food and tiny items. She briefly glanced around the place, assessing the faces of shopgoers and a middle aged guy behind the counter, sporting a greyish beard. He glanced up from his register and met her eyes, nodding in greeting. She nodded back, lightly and nervously. She started to turn back around and look for Peter when he nodded at her backpack. “Midtown high?” He asked, his voice aloof and calm. Samantha blinked once. “Um,yes.” “Figured. Only school close enough to here to get kid customers. Name’s Delmar, like on the store name.” The man said something in another language, to an employee appearing from the office. It must've been about her, because they kept glancing at her from the side. She had a feeling it was about her hair color. “You happen to know Peter?” “Uh, Parker? Yes. Have you seen him today?” “Well, now I have.” She didn’t get the time to ask what that meant, because Peter walked in immediately after. He nodded to Delmar as if he didn’t notice her, sauntering right up to the counter. “Hey, Mr.Delmar. Whassup?” “Parker! Speak of the devil,” Mr.Delmar leaned over on the country casually. “Let me guess, Number five, right?” “Yeah, and with extra pickles, and can you smush it down real flat?” Peter clapped for emphasis and suddenly whirled on Samantha. “Hey. You want somethin’?” Blinking away her confused stare, Sam shook her head. “Alright, more for me.” “You want it, you got it, Boss.” His employee got to work behind him, and Samantha suddenly regretted not taking Peter on his offer. That sandwich looked delicious. “Say, how's your Aunt doing?” “I’d say she's doing pretty good.” Samantha quirked an eyebrow as Delmar slyly spoke to his employee behind him in that language, then went back to Peter. The teen immediately spoke back in the exact same language, and she stifled a snort as the man’s cheeky smirk fell. He bluntly said: “That'll be ten dollars, kid.” “Come on, man! It's five dollars!” “For that comment, it's ten.” “Nah, I'm joshing, I’m Joshing.” Peter laughed as he retrieved five dollars from his pocket. “Look, here’s five--” “Actually,” Sam piped up and shuffled around in the contents of her purse. When she fished out a card she walked up to the counter beside Parker. “I’ll go ahead and try one of these, same stuff he has. I'll pay us for us both.” Delmar grinned his widest and winked at Peter. “Lotta luck today, kid. Insert in the chip,” He instructed. As she did so, a surprised teen blinked at her and adjusted his backpack awkwardly. “Uh, I coulda paid for both of ours.” “Well, its the thought that counts.” Sam watched as Delmar went to aid his employee with the sandwiches. “I thought you weren't going to show up for a sec.” “You were only in here for half a minute before I showed up.” Peter shot back, brushing past her to a white cat nestled on the counter. He scratched behind its ears, and it purred. “How do you know that? It's not like you’ve been watching me.” She pursed her lips after a moment of studying his expression. “You were watching me?” Peter gave her a sidelong glance. “Had to make sure you weren't blabbing about Spider-man at random. Especially out in public,” It suddenly occurred to her that his being a vigilante was probably a secret, one that she had carelessly talked about in front of whole bunch of people in school. She cringed, bu nervously laughed. “Ha, yeah. Sorry about that.” To get off that subject, she continued. “Um, about that...What were you planning on teaching me? The things in...this line of work?” Peter thought about the question, then shrugged. “Hmm. Where to start?” “Alright, so...Superhero stuff is fun sometimes, but its always a responsibility. People rely on us to save them, so it's our job to do just that.” Down a long stretch of sidewalk, Peter led her onto an unused path on a beeline for an alley. “Nothing serious has happened for a while, but that's what puts people in a false sense of security. There are a lot more crooks and thieves and stuff in Queens. This is ain’t Kansas anymore.” Sam rolled her eyes but continued to follow him with a mouthful of sandwich. “One: I moved here from Oregon, thank you. Two: Oregon probably has a lot more crime than Queens.” “Be that as it may, the fact remains that danger lurks everywhere for citizens.” They stepped into the alleyway and he tossed his backpack at the left wall, after removing his costume. A flick of his wrist had a spray of webs pin it there. “So, occasionally, Heroes like me wait till after school to don their suits and get to work.” “There are more people in high school that--” “No! No, I was...It's just me in high school. And you,” Peter hopped on one leg as he started putting on the suit. With both legs in, he started to work on the arms. “but you don't really count as your own hero, yet.” “I don't?” “Nope. You’re like, junior sidekick level. We’ll work you up to my level soon.” He patted the spider emblem on his suit and it tightened around him to a comfortable degree when it zipped up. With his mask in one hand, he held the other out to her. “Uh, do you have any questions, by the way?” “As a matter of fact I do,” She began as he climbed on three limbs and used the other to carry her up. She glanced at the ground leaving her behind and swallowed. She might grow a fear of heights working with this guy. “Is your line of the work the only thing a hero can work in the department of?” “...Line of…?” Sam bit her lip as she tried to think of how to explain it. “Well, you do work in terms of fighting crime and apprehending criminals. Sure, I’d like to save people that way but...Could I be like, The fireman superhero while you’re The police officer superhero?” As he pulled her up onto the roof, Spider-man’s lenses blinked once. “Huh. “ When she asked about his simple response, he said: “That’s how Mr.Stark and I are grouped. He does the world saving stuff, and he has me do stuff on the streets.” Sam scrunched her nose. “I thought you were an Avenger.” “Who says I'm not? I'm the backup. They just...have me stashed for a rainy day. They wouldn't be the Avengers if they needed me all the time, you know?” “Oh, I get it. The Avengers are like the military, you’re the police and I'm the fire department!” “No, you’re my intern, junior sidekick.” “Oh...kaaay.” Spider-man gestured to his surroundings, and for the first time, she noticed the many things assorted by hand. Old bed bunks in one spot, a few worn out nightstands in the middle and a slip and slide next to his feet. “Well anyway, today we start your training. For the police side. Maybe in a month, you can be a fire girl or whatever.” Samantha flinched at his nonchalant words--A month?! She didn't expect this to be a days work, but she didn't expect this to take a month either. “I...Well…” Instead of thinking about backing out, she pointed to the old junk around them. “What’s with the...hobo water park?” “Ha. Hobo Water Park. Funny…I pulled this stuff out of the local junkyard and brought it here.” Spider-man walked to the other end of the roof where the two rusty bed bunks were stationed. He took a running start, jumped through both and rolled to a halt on the other side like an Olympic champion. “Can you do what I just did?” Samantha rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “If I take these heels off, I can. I took Gymnastics for years before I came to Queens.” Peter nodded, pointing at the spaced-out nightstands. “And can you double-leap over these?” “Yes.” “And do a controlled slide on that water thingy?” “Yes.” Spider-man nodded, clearly skeptical but withholding his judgment for the time being. “Well, good. Cause you're gonna be running through his course for a week to build your agility up to par with mine.” “I just said I took Gymnastics for years! My agility is probably better than yours!” She said with exasperation, but when he didn't look ready to budge, Samantha sighed. “Look...If I can run through this course in eight seconds at least, then consider making this once a week.” Spider-man scoffed. “Eight seconds? Not happening. “ When she set up the timer app on her phone and handed it over, he laughed. “Wow. You're really serious about this.” Samantha tossed her heels over to a corner of the roof. “I didn't agree to this just so I could get sweaty after school. I agreed so I can figure out how to control my powers.” She stood poised at the two-bed bunks, crouching before the first one at a close range. Peter tilted his head. “I'm starting the timer. Maybe you should take a running start before--” A blur shot from the ground and vaulted between the bed bunks, before spinning on a heel and making two hops over the nightstands. The momentum made the blur lash a foot out to propel from the roof’s edge, and she made a controlled crash onto the Slip N’ Slide. A forwards roll had her back on her feet in seconds. “Whoo! Maybe I shouldn't have done that after eating...What's my time?” “Uh...oh.” He glanced down at the phone and handed it back to her. “Its...Seven point ninety-three” Peter looked over the course he’d set up and tried to reimagine her sprint through it. “Geez, where'd you take gymnastics: The military?” “Now you have to consider once a week training.” Sam smirked with an air of smug superiority. “And maybe fill in the rest of the time by taking me with on a...uh, patrol of yours. When you fight crime and stuff.” He sat down with a displeased huff. “Fine. Maybe I’ll let you tag along today. But I'm gonna have to web half your face to conceal your identity. If anyone sees you with me--” “Not to worry, I brought some stuff. See, I had this cool idea of using these sunglasses,” She unzipped her purse and pulled out dark red shades, then promptly put them on. She held up a finger briefly. “Hang on. Not finished!” Grinning the slightest, she fished out a yellow bandana with red streaks in it. She tied her hair back in a ponytail and then concealed most of her hair by tying the bandana around it. After putting on fingerless red gloves, she struck a hands-on-your-hips pose and smiled. “Huh? Huuuuh? Do you like it? I’m thinking of calling myself: Firecracker!” His lenses blinked but they would never be able to convey the deadpan look on his face. “...You...expect me to go out every day, and listen to people yell: ‘It’s Spider-man and Firecracker’?” Sam’s face fell into a dramatic pout. “ What’s wrong with Firecracker? I like Firecracker.” “Firecracker sucks. That's like a stripper name or something.” She gave an offended gasp. “What?! It does not sound like a stripper name? It sounds like a really cool superhero in training! And maybe when I quote and quote Graduate, I can be Missle-girl!” Spider-man hung his saddened head. “No. That is worse. That is so much worse.” He suddenly flinched. A light tingle at the base of his skull flared up, and he grimaced at the familiarity if it. “Shit.” Now her offended expression deepened. “Okay, now you’re just being mean.” Shushing her, Peter leaned over the edge of the opposite side of the roof. His lenses zoomed in a truck slowing to a halt in front of the old laundromat on the street corner. His view magnified to get an up-close look at the two bozos getting out if the car. “Uh, why’d you stop talking?” “We might be witnessing a robbery in progress.” “What? You can't just spring that on me!” “Those guys,” He pointed down at them. “Are some small time crooks I know. They're usually good with getting away with things. Almost as good as Turk Barrett.” “Who?” “I’ll school you on all the big names later. Right now, we gotta get down there and stop them before they make off with the money. “ He hopped onto the ledge and glanced back at her. “Too bad you can’t fly. Guess you’ll have to jump and I’ll catch you.” “Uh, these guys...aren't dangerous, are they?” She called down to the leaping hero, secretly admiring his professional landing. “They won't try to...shoot us?” “Or stab us. Yes. Just stay in the background, try not to fight and let me do the talking. You and me,” He gestured to themselves. "We got this.” Samantha gently lowered herself on the edge of the roof, about to jump into a whole new world. Adventure and Danger awaited her, in an ocean that could change her life forever. "Famous last words," Sam quipped and jumped from the roof.
