golden | peter parker

three

It was the last period of the day, and Penny was exhausted. Ever since she got her internship at The Daily Bugle, it'd been impossible for her to get more than seven hours of sleep.

"And I hope you've all been paying attention, because I am assigning a project!" Mrs. James the Biology teacher announced. Multiple students groaned, including Penny. Several hands shot in the air before Mrs. James even had time to explain what the project was.

"Let me go over what the project is, then you can ask questions alright? So this will be an assigned partners projects, so don't go hopping over to your best friend. Basically, you need to take any topic of Biology and write a three page research paper about it. You will also be required to do a presentation explaining what your topic is. On top of both of those things you have to create some sort of prototype to showcase how your topic works, or if you can improve it in any way. You are New York's best and brightest so these better be impeccable. As for the deadline, this will be due in a month and a half so I expect nothing less than perfection."

Penny sighed, there were multiple people in the class she would have chosen. She hated assigned partner projects. She wound up doing all of the work, and whoever her partner was wouldn't even bother saying, 'thank you Penny. Without you I would have failed immensely. You're the best.'

"Penny? Are you paying attention?" Mrs. James sternly asked, shaking Penny of her thoughts.

"Uh..."

"Your partner is Peter, now go sit next to him." Penny's faced flushed bright red as her classmates snickered at her. She grabbed her backpack and shuffled over to Peter's desk towards the middle of the room. She plopped her stuff down and sighed.

"So, um, what topic do you want to choose?" Peter asked hesitantly, unsure of how to talk to the girl after the conversation at lunch.

"Oh, so what? You're just going to make me do all the work? Leave me to choose our topic, write all three pages, AND build the freaking prototype? Is that what's gonna happen? We're really already starting and you pull this? Unbelievable," Penny exploded. She grabbed her pencil and started furiously scribbling down ideas of what she would do. 

Peter sat there stunned, utterly confused on what just happened. All he did was ask her a question, right?

"Wait. What?" That was the only thing that managed to come out of Peter's mouth. Penny rolled her eyes and turned back towards him.

"Look. If I'm going to be doing all the work, I prefer a quiet space so please just leave me alone." Despite Penny and Peter having very brief conversations lately, she never really paid any attention to what his work ethic was. She just assumed that he would be relatively lazy and leave all the work to her.

"When did I ever say that you were doing all the work? Seriously though, I only wanted to know what you were thinking. I hate when people make me do all the work, I wouldn't push that on you," Peter said defensively.

Penny's face flashed with three emotions: annoyance, regret, and then embarrassment.

"Oh my god, Peter I'm so sorry. I don't know what came over me. Algebra and gym were a nightmare, and I guess I just assumed that I would do all the work like I always do. I am so sorry," she apologized over and over again hoping Peter would forgive her. He laughed before shaking his head.

"Don't worry about it, man. I'm not mad," Peter said trying to comfort Penny. She still looked unsure so he said, "I'm serious. Don't overthink it Penelope."

Penny scrunched up her nose at the use of her full name.

"You know you can call me Penny right? I don't like my full name."

"Oh, sorry. I just thought that Penny was a nickname for like, close friends and family."

"Nah, you're good. Penny is perfectly acceptable," she smiled before continuing, "So I was thinking that we should do genetic engineering. But specifically about superheroes, and how they're possible. What do you think?"

Peter thought about it. Obviously, he himself was Spiderman so it would be getting dangerously close to revealing his secret. But, by the way Penny talked about her idea it seemed she had a couple of ideas about how they could do it.

"What, um, what superheroes were you thinking?" Peter asked, praying that she wouldn't say Spiderman.

"Like, Captain America and the Hulk. Maybe, whats her face, Scarlet Witch? They all have superpowers," Penny said writing their names down. Peter smiled in approval.

"Yeah definitely, that would be great. So when do you want to work on the project? Like when are you free?" Peter asked supporting his head with his hand, as he leaned on his desk.

Penny's face dropped. She was so unbelievably busy, how would she have time? Every day at 3 she had to be at the Daily Bugle where she would be until 6 because of her internship. Then she had to walk back to her apartment which was a 30 minute walk. She had dinner with her family immediately as she got back, which lasted until 7:30. Then she would relax for an hour because she had no free time up until that point. After that she would work on her homework until about midnight, because Midtown High didn't mess around with how much homework they got. Then she would get ready for bed and shower and be on her phone giving her some more relaxation time. And by the time she went to bed it was usually around 1 or 2 am. 

She ran her fingers through her hair, stressing out. On weekends she was just as busy because she had to take care of Noah and bring him to all his sports practices and games, while also interning at the Daily Bugle. And she used all the free time she got to sleep in, and spend catching up on reading or whatever youtubers she watched.

She ran through every possibility in her mind to clear up her schedule, but could only come up with one thing: stopping her internship at The Daily Bugle. She wanted so badly to become a full time photographer for them, and this internship was her way in. However, school came first so she knew she had to call J Jonah Jameson and tell him she had to resign.

Peter watched her and could literally see the gears turning inside her brain. She was visibly stressed and he didn't know what to do.

"Honestly? I don't know. Let me get back to you tomorrow and I'll have an answer. Take my number and if you don't hear from me by say, 8pm tomorrow, give me a call and we can sort this out," Penny said writing her number down on a piece of paper and giving it to Peter.

Not even ten seconds later and the bell rang, signaling it was the end of the day.

"See you tomorrow at lunch Peter," Penny said waving and turning to leave.

"See you later Penny," Peter said smiling. He was looking forward to the new fun conversations he and Ned would have if the girls were going to now be sitting with them.