Studying And Star Wars
Wednesday, June 28, 2018, 6:38 PM
“Test number fifty-seven. This is Harley Keener announcing he is ready for launch,” He stepped onto the makeshift platform and shook away his nerves. “Alright ABBIE, show me something!”
His voice echoed through the empty lab. Nothing happened.
“ABBIE? Are you online?”
“Sorry, I didn’t realize I was supposed to start it up when you said ‘show me something',” She responded.
“Haha, very funny. Start it up!”
The table lit up. A miniature hologram of his suit glowed softly from the desk. The different pieces were all rendered and safety checked.
“Render was a success,” ABBIE chirped. Even she sounded excited.
Harley took a deep breath calming his nerves. “Alright… Let’s do this. Activate mark two.”
There was a small humming sound from the bracelets on his wrists. They vibrated slightly before a loud clank echoed through the lab. And then… Nothing.
“What happened? They should’ve launched by now-” his left bracelet snapped open and engulfed his whole arm in metal. “Yea! It worked!”
There was another loud clank followed by silence.
“Where’s the rest?” he lightly smacked his right bracelet in an attempt to activate it. Instead, the band short-circuited, sending a sharp shock up the boy's arm. He quickly shook the bracelet off. “Shit… trial unsuccessful. ABBIE, remind me to rewire the right housing unit and fix whatever jammed it.”
“Done,” the AI replied.
“Thanks. I think we should wrap this up. May wants my help fixing the kitchen sink-” There was movement at the door. Harley quickly removed his prototype helmet and shoved it into his backpack. He twisted the emergency deploy knob on his elbow in an attempt to remove the metal armour from his wrist. It didn’t budge.
He swore under his breath and tugged harder. Something tightened against his forearm and clamped down. He tugged even harder. Whatever had clamped down, scraped against his skin for a moment before finally releasing.
The door opened just as he managed to shove the remaining armour into his bag.
“You’re still here?”
“Uh, yea I lost track of time. But I promise I’m going now. Got some stuff at home I have to deal with.”
The man at the door nodded slowly. He looked around the lab as if searching for something out of place. He didn’t seem to find anything.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Harley said, collecting his bag from the floor.
“Harley, could you help me with something quickly? I’ve been meaning to test the prototype but I can’t carry it into the testing area. It’ll just be a mechanical test, nothing crazy.”
Harley nodded and dropped his bag. “We gotta be quick though Doc. If I’m late, May will kick my ass.”
He couldn’t say no to a request like that. Especially with Doctor Octavius. Their work together on renewable energy would change the world. Of course, Harley didn’t really know shit about the environment or anything like that. But he did know machines. Doc could handle everything on carbon emissions and all that.
The prototype clunked onto the table in the testing area. It wasn’t as huge as Tony’s lab. The whole place was only two rooms. But it was perfect. It was Harley’s first lab job that Tony wasn’t involved in. Sure, Tony probably wouldn’t like the idea of Harley working there, but he didn’t care. He was finally doing something on his own. He’d finally found something for him that couldn’t be messed up by all the super-hero-bullshit that always seemed to be happening around him.
“Beginning test cycle sixty-eight. We’ll just use the computer code for this one,” Doctor Octavius said, typing on a laptop a few feet away.
“Alright, boot her up,” Harley stood a few feet back and crossed his arms over his chest. The prototype came to life. It was one of the newest models they’d been working on. With luck, they would be the first-ever to create a fully functioning miniature arc reactor. Okay, maybe not the first-ever… Also not really an arc reactor. That’s just what Harley called it in his head. It was basically an arc reactor just bright red and not likely to get them sued by a certain billionaire.
The prototype whirred as it powered on with the computer's command. The centre began to burn a bright orange. Harley couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. It was incredible to see all those months of hard work finally paying off.
“Ready for this?” Doctor Octavius asked, typing something else into the computer.
Orange turned yellow, turned bright white. Harley shielded his eyes from the blinding core. And just as quickly as it had begun, it stopped. The whirring silenced and the bright glow dimmed.
“What happened?”
“Just a few kinks need to be hammered out. We’re still making great time. Great job Mr. Keener.”
“Thanks, Doc. I really gotta go though. Kitchen sink won’t fix itself,” The boy grabbed his bag and practically ran out the door.
The walk home was more like a run. He had no clue that it had begun pouring rain outside while he was working. He would’ve driven, but he didn’t want May to walk home in the rain. He’d promised her he’d be home before the rain started. Oops.
By the time he got back to the apartment, he was completely drenched. His shoes squeaked with each step and he had to wring out his jacket before entering the apartment.
May was waiting for him in the kitchen. “You said you’d be home before the rain started,” Her arms were crossed over her chest tightly and her foot was tapping rapidly against the floor. Her whole body was telling him he screwed up except her face. She was smiling just a little bit under her facade of anger.
“I’m home,” Harley shrugged. “Lost track of time at tech club.”
“Thank you, Harley,” She patted his shoulder as she walked towards the broken sink. “I feel bad making you do this after you already walked in the rain. Are you sure it won’t take long?”
Harley grinned. “Nah, It’s probably just clogged. I’ll take the sink trap off and drain it and then it should be fine. I’m gonna get dressed first though.”
He knocked obnoxiously on the bedroom door before entering and taking his wet jacket off. He dropped his backpack on the floor near the bunk bed. It clanked hard against the hardwood floor. Peter looked suspiciously at it but didn’t say anything.
“You don’t have to knock, you know. I can hear you coming up the elevator,” Peter said, not looking up from the textbooks spread out on the desk in front of him.
Harley rolled his eyes and peeked over Peter’s shoulder. “Advanced functions? I thought you were done studying for that final.”
“Can anyone ever be done studying for a final?” He looked exhausted.
“I can. Cuz I am.”
“Good for you…” He yawned deeply before closing his eyes and resting his head on the open book. “Wake me up when I’m done with the final.”
Again, Harley rolled his eyes. He shook his head back and forth in an attempt to dry his soaking hair. He’d been keeping it short since he cut it in his bathroom. It was a lot easier to manage. Plus he didn’t need it long to cover bruises anymore. Peter groaned when little droplets of water landed on him.
“Relax. You have the highest GPA in the whole school. You’ll do great.”
“That just means I have the most to lose too,” Peter whined, sitting up again and returning to his textbook.
Harley couldn’t help but roll his eyes again. He seemed to do that a lot around Peter. “Yeah well when you’re done studying, May and I are watching the new episode of The Walking Dead so…”
“Uh yeah, no thanks. I’m gonna patrol tonight,” He rubbed his eyes and yawned.
“Seriously? It’s pouring out there.”
“Crime still happens when it rains. Plus I’ve taken so much time off patrolling to study already.”
“Uh-huh. And what about sleep?”
“I’ll figure that part out later,” Peter shrugged. He looked up from his textbook as Harley unzipped his backpack. “What’s in the bag?”
It was Harley’s turn to shrug. “Just some scrap metal from the tech room- shit,” He groaned and zipped the bag back up.
“What?”
“I forgot my notebook. I’ll have to grab it tomorrow after the exam.”
A strange expression was painted on Peter’s face. Almost as if he didn’t believe him. “Where were you all day? I thought you’d be studying for tomorrow.”
“I told you, I was working on a project for tech club…” He knew he’d have to tell Peter sooner or later. There was only one more day of school left and that would render his tech club excuse useless. It’s not that he was worried Peter would be mad at him for getting a job. He was just nervous that Peter would tell Tony and then Tony would start looking into the lab and maybe find out about the… sketchy things that they had to do for lack of funding. It wasn’t anything bad, just a few safety procedures they had to skip and maybe several exposed wires and an extreme lack of air conditioning (Seriously it was like an oven in there sometimes).
There was also the matter of May. He wanted to help out around the house as much as possible. No matter how much she told him it was no problem for them to take him in he knew she was picking up extra shifts as often as possible. So, whenever he could, he’d slip his weekly pay into her purse and the pockets of her jackets for her to find later. He’d tried to give his first paycheque (another sketchy detail of his work he was paid under the counter since he was technically too young and underqualified to work in a professional lab. If anyone asked, he was an intern. Hey if Peter could do it so could he) to her but she refused to take it. She never mentioned it to him and he never dared to bring it up to her.
Mostly he was just happy to have something that wasn’t involved with Tony or Spider-Man. Something he found and earned all on his own. He wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible.
“Only one more day to work on it may as well stay as long as possible.”
Peter nodded but didn’t seem convinced.
“I’m gonna go fix the sink now,” He mumbled, pulling a dry shirt on and heading to the kitchen. May watched intently as he worked. It was an easy fix. He just unscrewed the U-pipe and emptied all the gross shit that was clogging it and then screwed it back on. He’d done it hundreds of times.
“You’re a miracle worker,” May shrugged. “You wouldn’t believe what the building charges for a plumber these days. Thank you.”
“It’s nothing. If it clogs again let me know and I’ll empty it again.”
“Are you and Peter ready for dinner? I ordered Thai for the new episode.”
“Uh, I think he said he was gonna go on patrol.”
She rolled her eyes. “I swear if he’s not home by curfew-”
“We’ve got that math exam tomorrow. He’ll be back on time.”
~
Wednesday, June 28, 2018, 11:53 PM.
“Do you ever think like… Maybe R2D2 was just swearing the entire time and we just couldn’t understand him because we don’t speak beep boop language.”
Ned really had a way of completely forgetting what he was doing regardless of how important and come up with the most ridiculous sentence. It was almost impressive.
“Ned, we’re calling so we can study for advance functions while I patrol.”
“I know I’ve just been thinking about that all day. Or what if he’s really smart and funny but we just don’t understand him. How does Luke understand him anyway?”
“Ned.”
“Right studying sorry,” There was shuffling on his end and paper flipping. “Okay here’s one. If a tire rotates 400 revolutions per minute when the car is travelling 44 miles per hour, what is the circumference of the tire?”
“Easy, ten feet,” Peter was sitting on the first fire escape he found that wouldn’t get him soaking wet from the rain. He was wrong apparently when he said that crime still happens in the rain because he hadn’t had a single thing to do on patrol all night and it was almost curfew.
“Why are you even studying for this? You just solved that in your head.”
He sighed and rested his head on the metal bar behind him. “It’s not actually the exam I’m nervous about.”
“Then what is it?”
“Well, Harley doesn’t even care if he fails or not and somehow he’s better than me at almost every class. He hardly even studied for the final and he’s always at tech club and he’s not scared at all. And the high school he went to before midtown was apparently terrible and boring. If he’s so good at everything naturally then how am I supposed to compete with that?”
“Why are you competing with him in the first place? Why do you have to be top of the class?”
“It’s not like that. I don’t have to be top of the class-”
“You just don’t want Harley to be?”
“No! That’s so messed up. I just… To him, I’m just Spider-Man. I’m not special unless I’m wearing the mask and I just want him to think that I’m actually smart you know? Peter Parker is just as important as Spider-Man.”
“But you are smart.”
“Not to him.”
“How do you even know that? Has he told you that?”
He hesitated. Damn. Ned was right. “Well no… but-”
The screen on his HUD flashed red. “Peter this is your five-minute curfew warning. If you’d like to get home on time, I advise you to head back now,” Karen spoke up.
The map home appeared in the corner of the screen. “Hey, Ned it’s almost midnight I gotta go.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
It took less than five minutes for Peter to swing home. He landed on the wall beside the window and pulled it open slowly. The lights were all off in the bedroom so he didn’t want to wake Harley up. He crawled through the window and onto the ceiling. He carefully lowered himself onto the carpet and pulled his mask off. He wrung it out over the trashcan and all the rainwater poured out of it.
After quickly changing, he hopped into bed. But, he couldn’t stop thinking about what Ned had said. Harley had never actually said to him that he didn’t think he was smart. Sure, when he acted like an idiot Harley would tell him he was an idiot but he’d never meant it in that way. So why did he feel so inferior?
He pushed all those thoughts to the back of his mind. He didn’t like thinking about it. Instead, he thought about functions. They were simple and easy to understand, unlike somebody. Functions had an input and an output. The input and the output were related and it was easy to find the relation. He thought about functions for the rest of the night. Forcing his mind to stay off the unsavoury subject until he finally fell asleep.