fearless || peter parker

nine || busy boys & rich boys

Busy Boys, and Rich Boys

Summary: Diana spends some quality time with Peter (if you could call it that), and takes a page from Nitara's book.

***

The next week of school didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped.

It started at nine in the morning on Monday, when I got my Spanish quiz back: a fresh forty-two percent. And seeing as it's the only piece of marked material so far this year, my course average reflects it.

"It's not so bad," Nitara said, neatly folding her eighty-eight percent into the flap of her binder. "Verbs were never your strong point. Next unit is past tense. You'll get 'em then."

First of all, that was wrong. I sucked even worse at past tense than I did at verbs. Second of all, it hurts a little more when the teacher hands out quizzes to random classmates to mark, and then a smart kid hands you your failed project. They say time heals wounds, but I kept on reopening mine.

Next, I had gotten logged out of half of my social media accounts after Nitara had borrowed my phone. Which I wouldn't have minded, except for the fact that my recovery email wasn't actually my email- it was my eldest sister's, from when I made accounts when she still lived with Madison and I. Now, Anne and her fiancée were renovating their house, so I had to await an email from her about the mysterious influx of change-my-password emails she had received, since her landline was out, and she lived a twenty minute hike from anywhere you could even imagine to get cell signal.

None of that wouldn't have mattered if I didn't need my social media to get in contact with Peter in the least awkward way possible. He wasn't at school all week long, so I had to sit through yearbook with Harry the Floater, who kept choosing photography. I try to be nice, but this kid knows nothing about photography.

Sometimes I wondered how Peter excelled at school when he only showed up half the time. All week, Ned Leeds wandered the halls with his eyes glazed over. Harry didn't seem to be as interested in the poor guy the way he was with Peter. I tried to reassure myself in the fact that Peter's excuse of absence wasn't related to Nightmare, but the thought churned relentlessly in the back of my mind. What would he need to go on a week-long retreat for? Did he know Vulture? Was he in touch with the press? Or worse, Madison? Or, even worse- I was pretty sure he was still an intern at Stark Industries. There were so many loose ends I was dealing with here, it was enough to make my head explode.

I was not one for dealing with repercussions.

So, when Peter finally arrived at school the following Monday, I cornered him as we left Chemistry, after a very awkward run-down of the lab assignment we had started the previous week.

"I already did the first page," I told him, trying not to sound too accusing. "So if you had time outside of class, I could go over what I've done with you and we can both go from there."

Peter stumbled over his words. "You know, I could just figure it out on my own. Not that I don't want to work with you, or anything, I just... am really busy outside of school."

"So am I," I stated. "I have a job and..." Nightmare stuff. "I'm pretty sure we can find a sliver of time in our schedules to go over it."

"I'm really sorry," Peter blushed. "But I can't. I'll figure it out by myself, and then I can do the rest, if you want."

I narrowed my eyes at him quizzically as we walked down the crowded hallway. "So, you have time to figure it out by yourself instead of me explaining what you missed? Peter, if you don't want to hang out, just say so-"