Maya Stark

Chapter 22: Training Wheels Protocol

That night, I worked on removing the tracker from my suit. I had a feeling I would have to use it a lot more than I should. I stopped getting updates from Parker late into the night and I figured they had fallen asleep. I had finally got my dad to say I can go to the decathlon. It wasn't until the next morning when Parker told me at school that they were in Maryland, and that he was going to try and get back on the team. I was standing next to Ned, tapping my foot. He was cutting it close.

'Hey, it's Peter,' Abe said as Parker came running up to the bus.

'Yeah,' Parker said, 'I was hoping maybe I could rejoin the team.'

Flash walks forward. 'No, no way. You can't just quit on us, stroll up, and be welcomed back by everyone.'

Mr. Harrington walked out of the bus. 'Hey, welcome back Peter. Flash, you're back to first alternate.'

'What?' Flash said.

'He's taking your place,' Abe said.

MJ walks up. 'Excuse me, can we go already? Cause I was hoping to get in some light protesting in front of one of the embassies before dinner, so.'

'Protesting is patriotic. Let's get on the bus,' Mr. Harrington said.

Flash shrugs off his jacket and throws it at Parker. We answer some study questions on the way there. I sit in the back seats, slumped, reading a book. A little while later, Parker sits down in the seat across from me, while on the phone. I glance up from my book.

'Uh, yeah. No, it's just a school trip. Maya is here too. It's, uh, it's nothing,' he said. 'Look, Happy, I gotta say, you tracking me without my permission is a complete violation of my privacy.' Ned points at the hologram model of the people we were tracking. 'That's different,' Parker whispers. Happy must have asked something. 'Nothing. Look, it's just the Academic Decathlon. It's no big deal.' Happy said something to make Parker mouth a "what" and then hangs up.

'Isn't he cheerful?' I ask sarcastically.

We arrive at a hotel. It was a pretty large hotel, and everyone looked around in awe.

'This place is huge,' Charles said.

'I've seen bigger,' Flash said, making me roll my eyes. And people call me the spoiled brat?

'We have to get the tracker out of your suit,' I say to Parker, who nods.

We go up to their hotel room. I watch them as they connect the suit to Ned's computer and work to get the tracker out. Could I do this faster? Probably. Is it going to be more fun to watch them? Yes. I watch them from the ground with boredom.

'Peter,' Ned asked, 'why are we removing the tracker from your suit?'

'Uh,' Parker said, 'because I gotta follow these guys to their boss before they move again, and I don't really want Mr. Stark to know about it.'

'So, you're lying to Iron Man now?' Ned asked.

'No, I'm not lying,' Parker said. 'He just doesn't really get what I can do yet.'

'We are totally lying,' I said, nodding. 'But it's for a good cause.'

'Got it,' Parker said, holding up the tracker. He lays the tracker on the lamp and says, 'Alright, Happy. Enjoy tracking this lamp.'

'There's a ton of other subsystems in here,' Ned says. I walk over and look at the computer to see that he was right.

I smirk. 'They're all disabled by the training wheels protocol. That is so my dad.'