The Void

Chapter 2 - Parker

(Your POV):
Someone was tapping their pen on their desk, driving me absolutely insane. Not being to concentrate on my test with the incessant noise, I glanced next to me and used my powers to knock the kid's test off of his desk. However he had incredibly fast reflexes and caught the papers in midair, a look of confusion painted across his face. My head immediately snapped back to my own test, not wanting Parker to catch me looking at him nor make the teacher think that I was cheating.

Peter Parker and I had been trading off the position of valedictorian for all of high school in addition to middle school, but now that we had entered our junior year the pressure was really on to secure the top spot. I was currently in the lead, having pulled ahead when Parker's grades took a dip at the beginning of last year, but I wasn't sure how long I would keep my lead as his GPA inched closer to mine.

It wasn't as though I needed the top spot for academic purposes, I wasn't even sure I was going to go to a prestigious college. Although, I had decided to get a degree somewhere at the very least so that I could find a well-paying steady job that would distract from my alternate identity. Regardless, I wanted to be valedictorian to prove myself to my parents. I wanted them to see that my knowledge went beyond knowing the best way to kill someone in any given situation.

Parker began tapping his pen again and I was about ready to scream at him, but I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to get him out of my head. Focus was essential to survival when I was out in the streets, I just needed to practice it within the classroom as well. I desperately tried to drown out the noise Parker was making as I completed my exam and stood up to hand it to my teacher.

Parker must have finished at the same time because he arose as well, causing our bodies to crash into each other's. Parker quickly took my arm to stabilize me, making sure that I did not fall to the ground. He muttered a little apology, trying to remain polite, but not wanting to bring more attention to us than there already was. My gaze hardened into a glare as I tugged my arm free of Parker's hand and marched up to the teacher's desk to hand her the test, ignoring his apology.

I could feel Parker rolling his eyes at me, probably judging my coldness, but I could care less. Let him think that I was a heartless bitch, he could never know the truth. He could never know that I was the one going around saving the city while everyone else focused solely on themselves or made it worse while trying to pose as heroes.

Having finished the exam with much of the period left to spare, I turned instead to my homework, which I was happy to get done during school hours so that I could spend more time running missions after school. However as junior year advanced, that became more and more difficult. I had begun to integrate more APs into my schedule and the year itself apparently called for unnecessary amounts of work. Despite this, most days I was able to finish up, for the most part, by nightfall, which worked out well as I mostly operated in the dark. With my heightened sound and hearing, I was not hindered in any way, but rather thrived.

The public had dubbed me Void, a rather dark name I felt for someone who was out there saving the city. But if they wanted to believe that I was the villain, let them. One day they would come to the realization that I had devoted my life to doing good.

I was happy to go to my next class, as it was one of the few that I was not forced to share with Parker. He was a science nerd, but he lacked the same talent when it came to English. While I was on the honors track, planning on taking AP the following year, Parker was just taking the normal level in order to satisfy his English requirement. That being said, he did have me beat when it came to physics. He understood that branch of the science more naturally than I did, but that did not mean that I wasn't in the AP class with him, just having to spend more time to try to understand the concepts that he got immediately.

I collapsed into the desk that I had claimed as my own at the beginning of the year. It was in the corner of the first row, the desk closest to the door. No one else seemed to notice that that's what I was did in every one of my classes, I always wanted an easy escape in case of an emergency. For the other kids, it wasn't like that. They would either sit in the back to try to keep the teacher's attention off of them or sit in the front because they hoped it would help the teacher like them. None of them had grown up learning how to fight, what it took to survive. To them, the most important thing was that they were sitting with their friends.

I hadn't always realized how different my life was compared to the others at Midtown, for me my life was normal. I was homeschooled for a large chunk of my life, which I later realized was a decision made by my parents so that I wouldn't share my home life with the other kids. Children are so prone to disclosing information without realizing its significance and my parents certainly didn't want my first grade teacher to find out that I was essentially being put through boot camp at such a young age.

Besides, I liked being homeschooled. There was so much more that I knew compared to my peers, especially in the field of languages and survival, both key elements in my parents line of work. In order to keep the country safe, you had to be fluent in as many languages as you could to help decipher enemy threats as well as know how to handle yourself in a fight. They helped lead an organization called H.A.M.M.E.R., which despite their cool name had no acronym to back it up. I blamed Norman Osborn for that one.

Before H.A.M.M.E.R. they served H.Y.D.R.A., which to most people made them sound like villains, but the public had the wrong opinion of them. H.Y.D.R.A. existed solely to make the world a better place, but their ideas were too radical for the world to accept so the government and the dreaded Avengers made sure to wipe them out. H.A.M.M.E.R. picked up where H.Y.D.R.A. left off, but this time had a specific focus on the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. They recognized that those who society had dubbed "heroes" were indeed the ones that hindered progress the most.

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(A/N): Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers! I hoped that you enjoy this chapter, although it's mostly just background on your character, but with some Peter sprinkled in as well!