Chapter 4

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After a moment, I thought, Why should I care? Why should I let anyone else dictate my life?

With my mind made up, I kissed Harley on the cheek before saying, "That is sweet of you, but you could have seen me after school. Why did you have to interrupt my field trip?"

He pouted at the lack of a proper kiss and said, "That would have been too long! I couldn't wait seven hours to see my lovely boyfriend!"

Goddammit, he was laying the accent on thick. I blushed. "You do it every day, Love. Why do you have a sudden need to see me?"

He pretended to be faint. "I am deathly ill, and only true love's kiss can save me!" he cried.

I snorted. "Then you should go find someone who can give you one."

He looked at me with a fake shocked and hurt expression. "Are you saying this past year has been nothing but a lie?" he asked. "Peter Parker... are you breaking up with me?"

I rolled my eyes and gave him a quick kiss. "Never," I said. "I love you."

He grinned. "Good, because you're mine. No one shall ever take you from me."

"You might want to tell that to Leo. He's been flirting with me since we met. He's asked me out at least three times this week," I said, gleefully awaiting the reaction that was sure to come.

"He's been what? I'm going to kill him!"

I laughed. "Harls, calm down. You know he flirts with everyone. Besides, I only have eyes for you."

He took a deep breath. "Then why'd you mention it?"

I smiled cheekily. "You're cute when you're jealous."

He chuckled and kissed my cheek. "Come on, darlin'. I want to meet your class."

I smiled and turned to my class. "Guys, this is my boyfriend, Harley Keener-Stark. I met him at my internship. Harls, this is Flash, Abe, Cindy, Betty, Sally, Seymour, Tiny, Jason, Charles, Ava, Grant, Jack, and Darren. You already know Ned and MJ, of course. This is my teacher, Mrs. Tuss." Half the class seemed shocked that I remembered everyone's names.

"Wow," Sally whispered to Abe. "Peter's boyfriend is hot."

Harley heard and smirked at me, making me roll my eyes. "Sally, please don't inflate his ego. It's almost as big as Tony's, which is saying something."

"Ouch, that hurt, Kid," a voice said from behind me.

I whipped around to face Tony. "Oh, hi Tony. Sorry if I offended you. I truly thought you already knew how big your head is. I don't know how you manage to get through doorways, honestly."

Harley snorted.

Tony stared at me as though he was offended, though I knew it was all in good fun. "Bold words for a kid that has yet to be at me in a fight," he scoffed.

I smirked, completely forgetting about my class. "Wanna go, Stark? I bet I could take you down, even with the suit."

My class gasped, but I ignored them. No way I was backing down now.

Tony shrugged. "What are we betting?" he asked cockily. He was confident he could win, as he had every other time we sparred.

I grinned. I had been holding back just so I could do this. I was planning on doing something for mother's day, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. "If I win, I get 500 dollars. What do you want?"

"If I win, you have to withdraw from Midtown like I've been asking you to for months."

I paused. I was confident in my abilities, but that was a huge thing to ask. I bit my lip before nodding. "Deal."

"Well then," he said with a smirk. "Let's go to the training room and do this thing."

"Dr. Stark!" Amber scolded. "Peter's class is here for a tour!"

Tony shrugged. "Send notes home that they can stay the night and have the VIP tour to make up for the interruption."

Mrs. Tuss didn't even hesitate to start calling parents while the class followed Tony and me to the nearest training room a couple floors up.

"You sure about this, Peter?" Harley asked as we walked. "I know how much you like living a normal life at Midtown."

I smiled at him reassuringly. "Don't worry about it, Love. I'm not going to lose. Even if I do, I'll get to hang out with you everyday. What's so bad about that?"

He smiled back. "You going to use Spidey's stuff?"

I could feel Flash's gaze snap towards us at that, along with the rest of my class. "Those are for him, Harls. They're not mine, and you know it."

"Oh, come on! He wouldn't mind! You make everything for him anyways! It'll give you a better chance."

"Perhaps, but the look on Tony's face when I win will be so much better if I don't."

"Wait, you actually know Spider-Man?" Flash asked incredulously. "I thought you were lying about that!"

"I believed him," Cindy spoke up. "He's not the kind of person to lie, so I don't know why you all that he did."

Abe, Darren, Betty, and my friends nodded gleefully, staring at all those who thought I was lying the whole time. "Me too!" Abe announced. "Same with his internship."

Tony turns to face them, stopping abruptly. "Pete! You told them you had an internship here?" he asked sternly.

"Well, yeah. It's the truth," I said, my brow furrowing in confusion.

"I didn't tell you?" he asked. He looked at Harley. "We didn't tell him?"

Harley shrugged.

"Tell me what?" I demanded, narrowing my eyes at them suspiciously.

"Ah, well, you see, Pete." Tony mumbled something quietly before Harley elbowed him. He spoke louder. "Pepper and I decided you would be the best person to take over the company."

I choked on air. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah," he chuckled nervously. "We made you the CEO. I thought we asked you about this."

"No! You very much did not ask me!"

He shrugged. "I mean, you practically ran the place anyways, so we thought 'why not make it official?' Stephen didn't mind the idea either."

I took a few deep breaths to calm down. "What about Harley? You know, your son?"

"I loved the idea," Harley cut in. "It means I get more time to work on my projects. They said I could be co-head of Research and Development since Mr. Allen wants to retire soon."

I groaned. "We are going to have a nice, long talk after my trip about this."

Harley laughed at his expression before I whipped around to face him. "Don't think you're getting off scot-free, Keener," I snapped.

"Ooh," Amber whispered excitedly. "He brought out the last name! This is soooo going in the group chat!"

I glanced over to see her video taping the whole interaction. I rolled my eyes and ignored it. I grabbed both Starks by the ears and continued to the training room, dragging them behind me.

"Ow, ow, ow!" they shouted. I just pulled harder.

"You owe me a thousand now, Stark," I growled, releasing their ears as we reached the training room.

"Yeah, yeah," he waved me off, getting back into the competitive mode. He had no idea what was coming for him. An angry Peter was much more dangerous than Spider-Man. 

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Thoughts?

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