Spider-Man: Marvel Knight

Chapter 2-Gwen and Harry

The bus finally pulled up to the school. Midtown High School... Although it was your normal public school, to Peter there was no better place to go for education. Sure Peter was, like, the least popular person there (again, a dork), but they had the best science classes ever along with a great science building full of cool, and nerdy, stuff, and of course that's his whole thing. Pete, unlike normal kids who wanted to be businessmen and rock stars, always wanted to be an accomplished chemical engineer when he was older. Norman Osborn, Harry's dad and sort of adopted father of Peter, had always told him that as soon as he graduated, there would be a job ready for him at the huge corporation of Oscorp.
Peter hopped off of the bus and felt everyone on the bus push by him like he was completely invisible to the outside world. He then waited outside for Norman to drop Harry off. Pete's friend's attitude towards his father always came to him as a mystery because he could never figure out why Harry always said such harsh things about his dad. Norman had always been and acted like the father that Peter never had. After May and Ben became his legal guardians, Norman was going to make sure that Peter would have a family. First it was the Osborns with Mrs. Osborn, the Watsons with MJ's parents, then the Stacies with George, Gwen's father. They all knew loss, but between them and the Parkers, Peter had the family that he had always dreamed of. They were friends that accepted who he was, actually cared about him, and didn't try to push him into lockers or steal his money like Flash Thompson, the biggest jerk on the planet.
Soon enough, Norman's shiny black Lamborghini pulled into the long school driveway. Harry opened his door first and grabbed his things from the passenger side. Harry was tall and handsome like his dad...well he was tall to Peter, who was only like 5'6 or 5'7. Harry was about 6 ft, but to Peter, he was a tall hero that always had his back no matter what.
"Hey, dude," Peter said to his best friend.
"Hey, Pete," Harry said back. He flipped his hair so it would be out of his eyes. He then turned his attention towards the car. "See ya dad!"
Norman, instead of driving off, exited the vehicle and eyed Peter. "Peter Parker, my boy, you better come tell old Norman 'hello'," he said with a fatherly smile. Norman was the guy that you wanted to be: he was rich, famous, and a freaking genius to top it all off. The only person to rival his intellect was Tony Stark that everyone heard about in the news. Norman pulled Peter into a warm, fatherly hug and the smell of expensive cologne filled Peter's nose. "How've you been doing, kid?"
Peter chuckled as he patted his "dad's" back. "I've been doing great, Norman, how are you?"
"Oh, I can never complain about anything, Peter," he said while pulling away from the hug. He straitened his expensive, black suit "I'm busy as always... you, of course, know how this life is. Harry was just telling me that you two and Gwen are going to that science fair thing tomorrow at Lee and Kirby's, right?"
Peter glanced over at Harry for a second, who sort of ducked his head and smirked. His expression was the perfect mix of shame and amusement. "Yes, sir," he replied.
Norman clapped his hands together and chuckled. "Thats wonderful. Y'know, Otto and Kurt, the fellas who own the place, used to work with your uncle, your dad, and I?"
Pete nodded with a smile. "Ben always said that they were geniuses."
"Oh, they are, and many times that," he replied. "I always love to see the youth of America exploring new areas in science. Y'know, I'm glad you and Harry are best friends, cause otherwise, I don't know how we'd ever get him to fall in love with science," he joked.
"Thanks, dad," Harry said sarcastically, feeling slightly embarrassed. He quickly tried to find a way to get his father's attention off of him. "Peter, did you tell dad about your new project?"
"He did not," Norman said with an excited smile. He loved to hear stuff like this. "What project have you been working on, Pete?"
Peter didn't like to talk about his private projects, but Harry was embarrassed by his father. He guessed that it was only fair to shift some of the awkwardness onto himself. "Well..." Peter said while trying to find the right scientific words, "I'm engineering a new nanomesh biocable."
"Liquid cable..." Norman said with a huge grin, basically translating what Peter just said. "You're continuing my old research in nanotechnology...Thats awesome news, Peter. Have you conducted a test on the tow weight on it?"
Peter thought to himself for a moment to try and remember exactly what his calculations were. "I've been able to make it lift at least five hundred pounds, but I'm sure it could lift more if possible."
"Five hundred pounds..." Norman was impressed beyond relief. "Our geniuses at Oscorp never we're able to create a thread that strong in tensile strength... How... What's the formula that you used?" Norman said, obviously amazed that someone at Peter's age could manufacture something so complex like that.
Peter winked behind his large glasses "A good chemist never tells, Norman."
The billionaire laughed out loud at his own advice. "Good answer, Pete. One of these days though, when you get that office job at Oscorp, you'll have to show me."
Pete smiled with nerdy pride. "Yeah... One of these days."
Harry, who was now feeling uncomfortable beyond relief with the conversation, finally decided to end it. "Come on, Pete. We're gonna be late for class, and it won't be good if it's on the first day."
"Yeah," Peter agreed. "It was good to see you again, Norman."
He smiled at his two sons. "You too, Peter. Bye, Harry."
"Bye, dad," Harry said while walking away. "See you this afternoon."
With that, Norman sped away in his slick, expensive car. The two nerds walked into the school and into the busy hallway. Harry looked at Peter with an amused yet somewhat disappointed look.
"What?" Peter asked with an eyebrow raised.
"You had to get him amped up about science, didn't you?" It was always strange hearing the word "science" out of Harry's mouth. He looked nothing like a nerd or geek, although he was. He was pretty built in muscle, unlike Peter who was scrawny as a twig.
Harry's pal scoffed sarcastically. "Yeesh, sorry, pal, but if I remember, I did nothing of the sort, dude. You were the one to bring up my nanotechnology project."
"Touche'," Harry said with a chuckle. "I'll give you that one. Hey I was going to ask you if you saw the news about that Reed Richards guy."
No answer.
"Peter?" He turned to the sound of something slamming against the school lockers, and it was his friend. Flash Thompson, the biggest jerk in school, and his douchey friends had Peter pinned against the lockers. "Peter!" Harry yelled after him.
Flash pinned Peter's neck against the locker doors. "What's up, Parker?" he asked with a mischievous smirk.
Pete looked at the bully through his, now, shattered glasses. "Hey...Flash..." he said while gasping for air.
"You got anything for me on the first day of school?" He began to reach into Peter's pockets.
"Hey leave him alone, Flash!" Harry said trying to pull him off of Peter. Flash immediately backed off of Peter and sized Harry up. His friends then pinned Pete while he approached the nerd's "bodyguard." Flash was taller and more muscular than Harry, but Harry had kicked his tale before. Harry, in a way, was sort of Peter's muscle. No one messed with his friend unless they went through him first.
"What are you gonna do about it, privileged boy? Huh?" Flash asked loudly while pushing Harry a bit. "Tell me now, Osborn!" Before Flash could do anything else, Harry reared back and punched him square in the face. Almost immediately after the punch, Flash threw Harry down to the floor and started kicking him. "You like that, rich boy? Huh?! YOU LIKE THAT, DO YA?!?!" Everyone around them was either shouting for Flash to stop or to keep beating the daylights out of him (because kids can be cruel). Peter tried to struggle out of Flash's friends' grip on him, but he was just too weak.
Just before Harry could take another kick, a foot slammed right between Flash's legs. Of course, he fell to the ground in immense, aching pain. The bully looked up to see who it was, and it was none other than Gwen Stacy herself. She pushed her blond hair over her ear as she brought the principal over to the scene. He told the security guard to grab Flash and his buddies and take them to the office. He then told Gwen to take Harry and Peter to the nurse's office immediately to have then checked out. She pulled Harry up off of the ground. "Nice work, man. You got the absolute crap beat out of you," she said in her cute, yet stern, voice.
"Very funny, Gwen," Harry said while chuckling through the pain in his abdomen. "Thanks for the backup. I had him, y'know?"
"Sure you did, geek." She went over to Peter and reached out her hand. Peter massaged his neck where the kids had pinned him against the lockers and looked at the hand that was reached out to him to help him. "This isn't a Christmas party, so don't wait for an invitation. Come on." He smiled at Gwen's dad joke and grabbed her hand. Gwen could always make anyone smile and laugh no matter the situation. "C'mon," she said. "Let's go get you two brawlers patched up."
They finally got to the nurse's office after having a pretty much silent walk. After waiting twenty minutes, the nurse finally walked in.
"Well," the middle aged woman started, "you're both covered in bumps and bruises, but otherwise you should be okay." She handed the boys a bottle of acetaminophen and started writing out paperwork.
"So, what now, ma'am?" Peter asked curiously, still sore from his beating by Flash and his punk friends.
She looked up from her pages. "The principle is dealing with this as we speak. Just to be safe, the staff thinks that it would be best if you guys disappeared from campus today."
They all looked at her with surprise. "Wait a minute," Gwen said. "You mean as in, 'Just leave school,' disappear from campus?" She eyed the nurse. "Right?"
The lady smiled. "Yeah, sure. Nothing happens in class on the first day of school anyway, so you'll all be fine."
The first day of school would be their first to not have school. How meta was that? It didn't matter. All that mattered was that they could all be friends for a day and not worry about the world around them.