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ONE MONTH LATER. . .
"AYO, WHAT THE FUCK?" The mixed berry flavored Fruit by the Foot that had been hanging between Theo's teeth was ripped away by an unknown force until Theo looked over to see Jamie, his cousin—she had ripped off the piece that was covered in Theo's bite marks before taking a bite herself.
"Avresti potuto chiedere (You could've just asked)," Theo chastised before taking the candy back.
"Ma poi avresti detto di no (But then you would've said no)," Jamie responded. "You didn't come home last night." Home. Such a funny word.
Theo gave her a look before huffing and returning his attention to his microscope. "I was busy."
"Staking out the city?" Jamie raised a brow before sitting down in the seat next to him.
Theo didn't bother answering Jamie's question. Instead, he dodged it. "You might wanna move before Brenna makes you."
"Brenna wouldn't do that. To you, maybe. But not me. And besides, she's my lab partner, not yours. You got—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know who I got," Theo grunted with a wave of his hand, dismissive and unhappy—he had ended up pulling none other than Peter Parker's name out of the hat to be his lab partner for the month. A project was due by the end of it and they had yet to settle on a good hypothesis. They argued constantly, which was bound to happen since they had naturally become rivals when Theo had first stepped foot into Midtown.
A FEW WEEKS EARLIER. . .
It was the copy of Town & Country sitting on the coffee table that made Theo come to the realization that a majority of this was a set up—or pre-furnished, as the landlord called it. Veronica, his mother, who had caught him staring at the somewhat offensive material, swiftly removed the magazine from the table and replaced it with a more, uh, relatable issue: People.
"I just don't know why we had to move all the way out here just to be close to the school," Theo commented, finally releasing the death grip he had on his suitcase handle, "I can take the subway to Midtown. You know, like a normal person."
"The program picked this out as the best location so you could be within close proximity of the school and the rest of the city," Veronica explained, "that way, you wouldn't have to strain yourself going from end to end trying to find Spider-Man."
"A can of Raid to the face should work just fine." Theo shrugged.
Veronica sighed, very aware of the "smartass teenager" personality the program had given him. A little too much, if you asked her, but if they wanted it to work, he needed to blend in with the rest of them. "Theodore—"
Theo did his best to hide the twitch in his eye at his full name, already feeling some part of his brain going numb. "I'm just saying. It seems a little much, that's all."
"How did you end up being the most sane one out of the group?"
"Putting up a decently functioning facade can do wonders."
PRESENT DAY
There was the familiar screech of the stool being pulled back, followed by the thump of someone throwing themselves down onto it. Theo didn't need spidey senses to know that it was Peter, already bored out of his skull, which was funny because Chemistry seemed to be his favorite class.
"It's been a week and we still haven't come up with a hypothesis for our project," Peter started, "at this rate, it won't be finished."
"I gave you an idea," Theo retorted, not bothering to look up, "several ideas, actually. All good ones, too."
"Which would take us decades to finish and years off my lifespan because no one's got the damn time for quantum physics."
"Well, what's your great idea, then?" Theo finally looked up then to see Peter in his usual getup—a button-up, zip hoodie, and a comb-over that should've died in the nineties. He was already counting down the days where he didn't have to see him in that outfit again.
"I was thinking that we could do something a little simpler, but still complicated so we can still meet Midtown's criteria."
Theo blinked, waiting for Peter to spit it out. "Which is?"
Peter straightened up. "You can be a very pissy person, you know."
"I could be worse. I could be Brenna, but she has actual reason to be mean. But enough with the sidelining, what's your grand idea that will guarantee us an A?"
"Okay, I was thinking we could do our science project on the human brain."
"And you're telling me it's gonna take decades to finish one of my ideas because no one's got the time for quantum physics?"
"That was a set-up. My actual good idea was to see if either of us would be able to—what is even under the microscope?"
"What? Oh, it's-it's nothing," Theo rambled, "can we figure this out later? Class is about to start." He positioned his arm a little further so Peter wouldn't be able to see the piece of web fluid he had managed to snatch last night.
✧˖*° ━━ AUTHOR❜S NOTE whoop whoop, happy first chapter ! short because first chapters are hard, but it sets us up quite nicely without giving too much away
