Starlight › Marvel [1] ✓

013. to track or not to track

He knew Peter was going to have to tell him what he was up to soon, and if he didn't, he was going to force the answers out of him.

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Raleigh was staring out of the window, listening to the light background noise of the team answering Liz's questions. He could also faintly hear Mr. Herrington speaking to the driver about his ex-wife, but his voice was drowned out by the ring bells, pages turning, and people talking. He was beginning to get lost in his thoughts when Peter suddenly appeared in the seat Raleigh was in. He pushed Raleigh's feet to the ground and took the spot where they were.

The raven-haired boy shot his eyes to Peter, glaring at him when he saw how unbothered he was in irritating Raleigh. He wanted to say something snappy to the boy, but he noticed him holding his phone against his ear.

"Yeah, it's just a school trip," Peter said, sending Raleigh a slightly annoyed glance. "It's nothing."

"Is that Happy?" Raleigh asked. Peter nodded and Raleigh scoffed. "Why did he call you first?"

Peter rolled his eyes and switched the phone to his other ear. "Yeah, Raleigh is here too. But you know, Happy, you tracking us without permission is a complete violation of our privacy." Ned pointed at something on the tracker and Peter shook his head. "That's different." Happy replied and Peter let out a breath. "Nothing. Look, it's just the Academic Decathlon. It's no big deal."

Peter gave Raleigh another expression that just explained how irked he was at the moment and Raleigh refrained from dispatching his own. Instead, he took the phone from Peter, ignoring the anxious hey, that came from the boy as he lifted the phone to his ear.

"Happy!" Raleigh forced his tone to raise as he feigned excitement about talking to the cranky man. He enjoyed messing with him, Raleigh learned quickly. "How are you? You better be rooting for us, we're going to Nationals!"

He could hear the pained sigh that came from Happy, only making Raleigh's lips pull into a smirk. "You and Peter better stay out of trouble, don't forget I'm watching both of you. Any wrong move from either of you and I'll report it to Tony Stark."

"Yeah, yeah," Raleigh waved off the warning, "you know what, I'll make sure to win just for you!"

The call clicked off and Raleigh handed it back to Peter. The boy took it and fumbled around with it as he watched Raleigh shift his attention to the team quizzing each other. He understood he had a lot to say to Raleigh, but he wasn't exactly sure where he should begin since Raleigh was upset with him. An explanation on why he didn't explain the plan would be a good start, though.

"Raleigh—"

Peter was cut off by Ned gaping out of his window. "Whoa... what is going on?"

Raleigh turned to the window, seeing a partially destroyed building with a large helicarrier crashed right beside it. Trucks and people surrounded the area and tents were blocking off a large section of an area, which Raleigh could only assume either another carrier was or they were hiding something else behind it.

"Damage control." Raleigh jumped as Michelle's voice suddenly sounded behind him. He returned to see the girl staring out the same window Raleigh was. She gave each boy a short glance before looking back at the scene, Raleigh followed. "They're still cleaning up from when Captain America took down those skycraft carriers."

Raleigh furrowed his brows. He remembered seeing this on the news a few weeks after he was sent to first live with Trystan. "That was, like, two years ago, though." He gave his two friends and Michelle a look. "I would have thought they'd been done with it by now."