STEPPING UP [BOYXBOY]✔️

CHAPTER 7: IDEAS AND HEART BREAK

PETER PARKER
Flashback

I paced back and forth in my hotel room shared with Ned. Aunt May had actually been quite excited to participate.

"Captain America?!" She gasped. "You need my help? Peter, I'm so honored," she said through her tears.

"I'm just so happy to be involved in your life. With puberty going on and all your raging hormones-"

And I'll end it there. The point is, she agreed.

It was the next day in the late afternoon when my phone got a call. The cracked screen had May's name across it.

"Hello?" I picked it up eagerly, putting it on speaker phone as Ned dashed over to me and listened.

"Is this thing on?" I heard Captain America's voice ring from the phone as he talked to someone else wherever he was. "Can he hear me?"

"I can hear you," I responded while Ned giggled childishly.

"Ah, good. I don't know a thing about technology. Back in my day-"

I interrupted him, "Sir, not to uh be rude, but this is urgent, Sir," I said stupidly.

"My apologies," he said. "May told me about your predicament. Must I say, that was really stupid of you to do." I shifted slightly in shame. "But you made the right call, stepping up like this and trying to solve the mess you made."

"Thank you, Sir," I mumbled into the phone. "So do you know what we should do?"

"Well, I have an idea."

My hope spiked up, "What's the idea?"

"It depends on how good of an actor you are."

QUENTIN BECK
Flashback

"So let's go over the plan one more time."

I pointed at Suzie. "You're going to cause a distraction so the guards aren't paying attention when Michael, Elizabeth and Nicole come in. Nicole's going to pretend to be an assistant and figure out the layout of the building. Elizabeth will be the look out and use her microphone chip that I installed.

"Then, Michael, you're going to get up to the control room once Nicole finds out where it is and shut down the system so that they can't stop the missiles from firing."

Everyone nodded in agreement.

"Everyone else will stay in this office to make sure nothing goes wrong and fixes it if anything does. I'm going to hide somewhere in plain sight so no one can find me while I send the missiles. It's too easy for someone to find me if I stayed here or went to Stark Towers."

They all enthusiastically nodded and went to work.

I left our office, deciding to go to the bar where Peter and I went yesterday. Because apparently I enjoy torturing myself and wanted to remind myself of him, everything I was doing to him. Betraying his trust. Hurting him.

I downed three shots of vodka when I heard Suzie speak up. "I'm in," she whispered. "I'm causing the distraction now. Elizabeth and Nicole, go inside in a minute."

I heard an ear-piercing shriek from her line and jumped back, causing the bartender to give me a weird look. I smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I might've had too many."

"I'm going in," Elizabeth declared. She snuck into the building and told me everything that was happening the entire time so we could prepare if anything didn't go to plan.