The Announcement
The last bell of the day rang and the classes all started letting out into the hallways. All of the kids were rushing to get out of there as fast as they could. Peter headed to his locker knowing that his friends would probably all meet him there before they headed to the Academic Decathlon meeting that started in 20 minutes.
He ran into Billy in the hallway before he made it to his locker. He was near the stairway talking to Teddy. Peter didn’t plan to stop because he knew he’d see Billy later at AD, but Teddy waved him over.
“Hey Peter!” Teddy said. Peter had gotten to know Teddy better recently since he’d been coming over to the tower for team movie nights and things like that more.
“What’s up? Are you planning to come to the laser tag match next month? I heard the Wakandans are coming, so it’s gonna be huge.” Peter said, keeping his voice low enough to avoid attention.
“The Wakandans? I’ll totally be there. I think the whole team was planning to be there, but I’m not sure. I haven’t heard anything from David about it, but he’ll-” Teddy wasn’t able to finish his thought before it was finished for him.
“David’s coming!” Interrupted a voice from behind them with a whoosh. Peter jumped and then quickly looked around to check and see who might have saw what just happened.
“Chill! Everyone is pretty much gone and I promise no one was around. I’m just so sick of sitting all day. I gotta move.” Tommy said, leaning on the railing. “Anyway, David’s coming. He told me the other day. He wasn’t too excited for it, but I talked him into it. I can be… persuasive.” He said with a smirk.
Billy fake gagged. “Okay I’m not in the mood to hear about any of this. Plus, we gotta go and get ready for practice anyway.” He said, grabbing his bag.
“Ah yes. While the nerds are busy with their nerd things, I will be busy doing… other stuff.” Tommy laughed.
“Shut UP.” Billy said. He then quickly gave Teddy a kiss on the cheek and grabbed Peter’s arm and sped up to head to practice.
“Aww that’s so cute. He thinks he can outrun me.” Tommy teased. Teddy just rolled his eyes.
Suddenly a blue energy threw Tommy back against the stairs. Teddy just laughed and walked away.
“I’m telling mom!” Tommy called after his brother before turning and leaving.
*************
Peter’s rules for his powers were simple. Peter Parker had no powers. Spider-Man was the one with the powers. In the eyes of all of the common folk he wanted to just be a normal 16 year old. He knew that life would be easier if he used them, he would definitely be picked on less, but he just wanted a normal life. Plus, if someone was going to be picked on, it might as well be the person that can deadlift a bus and heal a stab wound in a couple days. That’s better than some defenseless kid that can’t handle it. Peter was fine with how things were.
Billy didn’t have rules for his powers, but his parents did. No out of costume shenanigans. Billy Kaplan was a normal teenage boy. He came from a nice normal jewish family with no powers. He was just a regular kid. Except that he wasn’t. That was the story he was meant to tell. He knew that his parents just wanted to keep him safe. They said once he was old enough he could choose if he wanted to be public with his identity or not, but until he was of age he was forbidden from exposing himself. He and his brother both were. Tommy was far more reckless with his powers, but he also knew the dangers that could come with being exposed. Especially if they were exposed as the children of the Vision and the Scarlet Witch.
“Where were you?” Ned asks once they get to Peter’s locker. “I was waiting here forever. I thought maybe you had to go and do some… internship things.” He said his voice moving into a loud whisper.
“What? No. We were just talking to Tommy before he headed home.” Peter said, exchanging his books and shutting his locker.
“Oh. Well that’s cool too I guess.” Ned shrugged. “Hey I heard that if we win nationals at the end of the month the grand prize is going to be a huge fancy field trip.
Peter groaned a little bit. Not once had he had a normal field trip. Something always has to go wrong. “Where to?” He asked as they reached the door.
“I don’t know. It’s supposed to be a big announcement for teams that qualified.” Ned said opening the door and letting the others in before him.
“But we already qualified, so when are we supposed to find out?” Billy asked.
They put their things down on the table where MJ was already sitting. “You’re almost late.” She said not taking her eyes off of her book.
“We still have 4 minutes.” Peter said, pointing at the clock. “Mr. Harrington isn’t even here yet!”
“I said almost, didn’t I.” She smirked.
They all sat down in the available seats waiting for their teacher so they could officially start practice.
Suddenly the door flung open and in walked a hurried and excited Roger Harrington.
“BIG NEWS GUYS!” He said as he rushed to the front of the room. “Wait. Is everyone here? I need to make sure everyone hears this info at the same time.” He said catching his breath. It almost sounded like he had run to the room.
“We’re all here. What’s the big news?” Flash said from a different table on the other side of the room.
Mr. Harrington took a deep breath before he started. “Wheew. Okay. Big news everyone!” He said with a big smile.
“As national qualifiers,” he started before he was interrupted with some cheers, “we have been given the information about this year’s grand prize!”
Everyone was listening intently now. “So this year the grand prize winner will be going on a field trip!” There was excited murmuring as Mr. Harrington paused to catch his breath. “The field trip is a full tour of the Stark Industries Tower!
The room erupted with cheers but Peter’s whole table just looked at each other. Their school friends were taking a field trip to the place that Peter and Billy live. The only person in the group of 4 that was cheering was Ned.
“Why are you excited you’ve been there a bunch of times?” Peter told him.
“But it’s the Stark Tower! That’s so cool!” Ned said with a huge smile plastered on his face.
Billy just looked at Ned before leaning in. “You had dinner with us all last weekend AT the Stark Tower.” He whispered.
Ned didn’t even pay attention; he was practically bouncing in his seat. Everyone else was going crazy too. They were even too excited to notice that two particular team members seemed less than thrilled.