LOUD MOUTH → PETER PARKER ✓

Chapter Twenty: Bug Boy and Loud Mouth

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐘: BUG BOY AND LOUD MOUTH

"Gooooood morning Midtown Science High! It's your morning announcements overlord, Callie Adams, back from the dead, coming to you from an ugly looking plastic box with a speaker inside. Now first of all, I'd like to clear a few things up. Yes, I am a gun-wielding, liquid nitrogen spraying badass who definitely saved the world all by herself. Okay, maybe not all by myself. I assume by now all of you know my friend, Spider-Man, and no, Flash, you can't have his autograph, stop asking.

"But what I'd really like to address is the question I've been asked at least a dozen times every hour for the past week: who is Spider-Man? See, I'd really like you tell you, but I can't. It's secret. Top secret. Take it to my grave secret. So secret that if I told someone, the government or the FBI or the CIA or the Illuminati―one of the four―would have to hunt me down and murder me. So, basically, very secret.

"Alright, back to the boring stuff. Pep rally today, geez, we have a lot of those . . bring pep I guess. Wait wait wait . . we have a legendary dress code reminder for the boys. What the heck? That never happens! This is a day to remember, folks. Okay, boys! No muscle tanks. They're really cheesy and just stupid in general. Wow, that felt really good. Okay, moving on, today is national ice cream day! So go and try to beat my record for how many scoops of ice cream you can balance on an ice cream cone and successfully eat without throwing up, which is eight. Actually, I wouldn't recommend that. Yeah, never mind, don't do that.

"Aaaaand that's all we have for today, so do your homework, eat an unhealthy amount of ice cream, punch Flash in the jaw, or D) all of the above. This is your class president Callie Adams, signing off."

The second the microphone clicked off, Callie grabbed her backpack and nearly sprinted out of the office. "See you tomorrow, Myra!" she called to the receptionist. "I'm ditching today!"

Callie ran out of the building as soon as the bell signaling the beginning of first period went off, Peter's skateboard in her hand. She had only been practicing skateboarding for a few weeks, and it was safe to say she wasn't great, but she set down the board and put one foot on it. She pushed off unsteadily, rolling a few feet.

"Hey, you're getting kinda good at that."

Callie screamed, caught off-guard, and the front of the skateboard tipped up, sliding out from underneath her. She fell forward for a moment before being caught by a masked figure. She looked up at Peter, his face covered by his mask.

"Or maybe not," he said.

"Shut up," Callie laughed, running to pick up her board. "Some of us are regular humans, thank you very much. Now let's get out of here before someone sees you."

"Way ahead of you!"

Callie squinted up to see that Peter was somehow already on the roof.  "Show-off!" she yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth.

A web suddenly shot down and attached to her hand. She had only a moment to process before she was pulled upwards. She landed on her feet on the roof, her eyes wide. "Holy shit," she breathed. "I think I'm finally used to that."

"Good," he said, "you ready?"

"Yep." Callie wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held on tight.

He paused, looking at her. "If you drop my skateboard, I'll kill you."

"Woah," Callie said, her eyes wide. "You sounded like me. That was weird."

He shrugged, "Yeah, I guess I finally figured out how to be a loud mouth."

Callie rolled her eyes, a smile on her face. "Just jump off the roof, Bug Boy."

He grinned, wrapping an arm around her waist. "If you say so." They jumped off the roof and swung forward with Callie screaming through a smile.

In the middle of downtown Queens, people looked up to see a red-clad figure, swinging from building to building, and shouts started to crop up from the ground. "Isn't that Spider-Man?" one yelled. "Who's that with him?"

Spider-Man had become somewhat of a spectacle to the people of New York, happy to finally have a superhero of their own. Dozen of people took out their phones, hoping to capture the web-slinging vigilante in a video to show their friends and family.

And over the sound of chattering as people gazed up in amazement, a voice came from above, louder than all the rest: "THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN SPANISH CLASS!"