It Started With A Mission (Peter Parker Fanfiction)

Chapter 7

Riley still continued to stare at her arm in disbelief. How could it heal that fast? Unless it was another side effect of her superpowers. She has been getting more advanced with her powers throughout her five years of having them. She looked for a paper cut she had gotten the other day, but it was nowhere to be found.

This was something she couldn't keep from Tony. But, how was she supposed to tell him how she had gotten that scratch? She tried fabricating an excuse in her head, but couldn't really think of anything. She couldn't say she fell. Fell down a flight of steps? Maybe. She decided to just wait until tomorrow to figure it out. 

The next day was brutal. The whole morning she was jamming in all of this stuff she should have done the night before. Riley was finishing up a rough draft essay due for English, shoving a half-eaten apple into her mouth, and at the same time stressing about what happened with Anastasia yesterday. Thankfully, the cut on her arm had completely vanished by the time she woke up.

It was now Wednesday and it was frightfully cold outside. Riley walked into the school, letting out a small shiver before going to her locker. She saw Peter in the hallway, without Anastasia. Shit, what if she didn't come to school because of what Riley had done to her?

Peter noticed Riley before she saw him. For some reason, she was on edge. She gave him a friendly smile, clearly trying to hide her true emotions. "Hey, Peter," Riley said to him, her voice radiant. 

"H-hi, Riley," Peter said, kind of freezing up, not really expecting her to say anything to him. "Have you seen Anastasia anywhere? She said she had something to tell me."

Every single bone in Riley's body immediately turned to stone, panic rushing through her body.  "U-um, I haven't seen her, why? Not like she would even talk to me because we aren't friends," she said, sounding like an idiot since he had already answered that question. "S-sorry, I didn't get that much sleep last night." Lies.

"It's fine, I'll see you in Bio," Peter says, smiling at her slightly before continuing to walk. He just hoped that she was okay. Both Anastasia and Riley.

Riley wanted to curl up into a ball and cry. This was the second time she deliberately hurt someone using her powers, the first time being her own father. Sure, she did daily meditation, sometimes with Bruce (since he was an expert on this type of thing) but it didn't really help her control how much force was delivered when using her powers. She didn't have anyone left with powers like hers, so she was kind of at a loss.

The bell rang and she was paying attention and taking very detailed notes to keep her mind off of Anastasia and why she wasn't in school. She eventually began writing with such force that the pencil she had been using snapped. Peter looked over at her and swallowed, reaching in his bag and handing her a pencil. 

"Thanks," Riley said, smiling weakly. "I promise I won't break this one."

"Okay, class, I want you to turn to your lab partner and share the notes you took in class today. You will be having a pop quiz shortly on ecology and you are allowed to use your notes and work with a partner, so hopefully this shouldn't be too difficult," the teacher said. The class groaned because obviously, no one likes pop quizzes.

"Okay so do you want to go first?" Riley asked.

"It doesn't matter to me," Peter said. 

"I actually didn't get a lot from the start of the powerpoint do you think we can go over it?"

"Y-yes, sure," Peter said. "So there are three different types of things that go on in a community. There's competition, which is seen as a double negative, predation, which is a positive-negative, and mutualism which is seen as a double positive."