"Hey what are you doing?"
Cassie turned around on the rooftop to see Spider-Man swinging towards her. Shit, she thought to herself. No one was supposed to know she was up here. She hoped that Peter wouldn't be able to see through her cheap-looking disguise and notice it was her.
"Hi," she said back not, knowing what else to do.
Peter swung on onto the roof, landing in his iconic position. She had to admit seeing him in the suit was pretty cool. "What are you doing up here? I saw something was off are you okay?"
"Yes, Spider-Man, I am okay."
"Then what are you doing on a roof in the middle of Queens at 11 at night?"
Before Cassie could answer a sound erupted from across the street. Cassie and Spider-Man both turned to look and saw a group of guys in cheap Avengers masks breaking into a bank. Shit, she thought to herself. I guess Homecoming has officially begun...
"Stay right here!" said Spider-Man before swinging over the store. Cassie watched as he snuck inside the door going unnoticed by the criminals.
Why was he telling her to stay put? She could fight off those bad guys just as well as he could. Without thinking, Cassie made a portal, appearing next to Spider-Man who was leaning against the back wall. When he saw her, he jumped in surprise.
"Holy shit how did you do that?" He asked, causing the attention of the robbers to turn to them. "Sup guys, hope you got your PIN," he said, directing his attention towards them. "Woah you're the Avengers! What are you guys doing here?"
They all turned their weapons towards Cassie and Spider-Man. "Wow, Tony Stark robbing a bank? I thought you had all the money you needed Stark!" Cassie joined in, lifting her hands to form an eldritch whip that slashed by her side.
"I would be nervous if I were you I didn't know she could do that." He shot a web towards the closest robber, bringing it up to slap them in the face while Cassie circled her whip around another guy, pulling his feet out from right under him. "Thor, Hulk, good to finally meet you guys!"
Spider-Man jumped on the ceiling, kicking the robbers out from underneath him. One of them tried to take a swing at him but Cassie jumped in front of him, casting a shield to stop the blow. "And here I thought the Avengers were supposed to be the good guys!"
As the shield dropped, another robber got up from the floor, grabbing Cassie from behind and pulling her down with him. Spider-Man lunged to try and stop him but another robber pointed a deviation gun towards him. Spider-Man dangled in the air, not knowing what was happening.
"Woah this feels so weird!" he exclaimed.
Cassie jumped back over the guy's shoulder and spun her legs around to wrap around his neck. She hit him on the pressure point on the back of his head, somersaulting forwards as she fell. Now standing, she turned around to the guy who was levitating Spider-Man. She had never attempted stronger magic before but she thought there was a place and time to try everything and now was defiantly the time. She moved her hands in the clocklike position she read about in the library, crossing them across the center of her body and shooting her fingers out forwards the gun.
The Bolts of Balthakk shot energy from her hands, shooting the gun, along with the robber back against the bank wall, knocking him unconscious. Spider-Man fell gracefully to the ground before standing up and brushing himself off. He turned to look at her, the eyes of his suit raised.
"How did you learn to do that?" he asked.
Cassie shrugged, amazed at what she had just been able to do. "I-I didn't know I could do that. I had never tried that before."
Spider-Man walked over to where one of the criminals was lying on the floor groaning. "How do criminals like you get advanced tech like this?"
Cassie watched as he teased the robber when she noticed one of them start to get up, not noticed by Spider-Man. "Spider-Man watch out!" she shouted as the robber turned on the power gun and pointed it towards the web-slinging hero.
Cassie moved her hands quickly, transforming the gun into a water blaster before it could go off. Spider-Man quickly shot a web tying the robber to the ground. He looked back at her.
"Thanks," he said.
Cassie glanced out the window Spider-Man was standing next to as he went around, webbing the rest of the criminals up so they couldn't escape. As she looked outside, she saw Delmars Deli across the street still intact. Well at least I changed one thing for the better, she thought. Mr. Delmar had very little screen time but she could tell that he was a nice man. When she turned back, she saw that Spider-Man had finished webbing up the robbers.
She quickly formed a portal back to a random Queens rooftop. "Let's go before the cops show up," she told Spider-Man, who nodded, following her through the portal. Once they were both on the other side, she waved her hands again, closing the portal behind her.
"What was all that back there with the whip and the shield and the water blaster thingy?" Spider-Man asked her.
"I'm a sorcerer," she told him. "These are things all of us can do."
"All of us? There's more than just you?"
She nodded. "We're not allowed to perform spells in front of people, I shouldn't have helped in the first place." Cassie turned to leave, not wanting to draw more attention to her or the fact that her friend was standing right in front of her and he didn't know it.
"Wait!" he said, stopping her. "Mr. Delmar's deli across the street would've been toast if it weren't for you. I'm glad you helped out."
She gave him a warm smile. "Thanks, Spider-Man."
"Anytime..." he paused, waiting for her to fill in the gap that was her name. She didn't want him to know it was her. Peter would for sure tell Happy or Tony and that was the last thing she wanted right now. Plus, the less he knew, the better it was when she goes back to her earth. It didn't take long for her to think of a superhero name on the spot.
"Pythia," she told him. "It based on-"
"Pythia the Oracle of Apollo I am aware. She was the first feminist witch in history. It fits." Cassie couldn't help but blush. Of course he knew the history behind the name. She picked it for those very reasons after reading up about her in Kamar Taj. "What about the suit? Not very sorcery."
"It's- being repaired right now. I haven't gotten around to fixing it," she easily lied.
"Well then, I hope I will be seeing more of you in the future? Pythia?" he asked. "Having your help out here tonight was great."
She gave a pause, debating whether she should say yes or not. "Maybe," she finally spoke.
"That's good enough for me," he resounded.
Cassie opened up another portal, this time to a field, just outside Avengers Compound as to not reveal her location to Peter. "See ya around, Spider-Man."
"See ya Pythia."
That was the last thing she heard before jumping through the portal. She opened another one that took her straight to her bedroom before she finally collapsed on her bed again. This wasn't supposed to happen, she wasn't supposed to become a superhero in the MCU. She was so exhausted for the day that it took the rest of her energy to get into her pajamas, falling fast asleep before Tony was even home.
━─━─━━─━「₪」━━─━─━─━
The locker room was packed as Cassie got dressed after gym to lunch. Liz and the other girls were off today doing something for student council, something that Cassie made very clear she didn't want to be a part of. She was never really the most outgoing girl, especially when it came to school activities. She packed up her stuff, ignoring the conversations going on around her. She heard snippets of what was being said, Bank robbery, Spider-Man, Pythia. She snapped her head around. Pythia? Why did people know that name? She turned to see a couple of freshmen standing behind her, talking about the robbery that she helped Spider-Man takedown.
"And then she summoned a whip to help take the robbers down, it's all over the Daily Bugle!" One girl exclaimed.
Her friend soon joined in. "Omg yeah, I saw that article too! Do you think she's dating Spider-Man? I feel like we would have heard of her before now."
"You know how it is with superheroes, always sworn to secrecy."
No no no no this can't be happening. If Tony caught wind of what was going on, if the Ancient One found out... she would be toast. Cassie tried to block out the conversation and focus on other things. She would deal with this when she got home.
As she left the locker room, intending to eat lunch alone, she was surprised to see people waiting for her. Peter and Ned stood outside the girls' locker room talking about who know what, but shushed each other when they noticed her.
"Hey Cassie," said Peter.
"Hi," she said back, awkwardly waiting for him to introduce his friend. Of course, she knew who Ned was but they had never officially met.
"Oh, right this is my best friend Ned. Ned Leeds, meet Cassie Potts."
She held her hand out to shake his. "Nice to meet you, Ned."
"Right back at ya," he greeted her.
"We saw student council hanging up banners and thought that maybe you would wanna eat lunch with us today? That is if you don't wanna eat alone we understand if you do-"
Cassie interrupted him before he could ramble on for too long. "No Peter, it's okay. I'd love to eat with you guys."
Peter couldn't hide the blush forming on his cheeks. "Cool... yeah great we uh... were heading over to that table."
"Lead the way." Cassie smiled as she followed the boys over to a nearby empty table. They all placed their bags down, pulled out their lunches for the day, and began eating. "So Ned, what do you do?"
He looked back and forth between her and Peter. It was like no one had asked a personal question to him before. "What do I do?"
"You know, Peter has his tech, I'm pretty good at chemistry, what about you?"
"Well um, I'm not too sure yet. Maybe something in engineering? I like building with legos..." Peter's eyes widened and looked over at Ned. He nudged his shoulder as to tell him that he shouldn't have said that. "Or not legos... I build things with... manly tools...."
"Manly tools?" Cassie repeated causing Peter to bury his head in his hands. "Well, I was kind of hoping you stuck with legos cause that would be pretty cool..."
Both boys' heads shot up to look at her. "You build with legos?" Peter asked.
"Of course, only an amateur would find them stupid. Back home I built this huge Giganotosaurus from Jurassic World it was so cool."
"What's a Giganotosaurus?" Ned asked.
Peter soon chimed in confused as well. "Wait Jurassic World? You mean Jurassic Park right?"
Shit. Cassie froze. Of course, Jurassic World wouldn't exist here, Chris Pratt is in it. "Did I say Jurassic World? That's... what I call dinosaur lego sets... I build a lot of them so I decided to give them their own name...." The two boys stared at her skeptically; she could tell that Peter wasn't buying a word she was saying.
"Cool," Ned replied, the idea of anything off going unnoticed by him.
Peter joined him, still not fully convinced. "Yeah... cool."
"You could, I mean... Peter and I started this Lego death star a couple of days ago..."
"Yeah, Ned caught me hanging upside down..." Peter told Cassie, mad at how poorly he kept his identity a secret from his best friend.
Ned, on the other hand, was stumbling for words. "Hanging upside down.... from the bunk bed! He fell on the death star and broke it we have to start over."
Cassie leaned across the table and spoke in a low voice to him. "I know Peter is Spider-Man, Ned."
Ned's eyebrows raised as he looked towards his best friend. "She knew? She knew before me?"
"Her uncle is Tony Stark of course she knew Ned! Besides, she knew about it before I even met her!"
"It's true, Tony tells me everything," Cassie said with a smirk.
Ned turned back to her. "So then you know about this bank robbery with Pythia? Who is this girl?"
She sat up straight again, preparing herself for the conversation. "I... I don't know who she is.... do you, Pete?"
"N-no, nope. She kinda just showed up. I saw her on a roof and thought it was weird so I went to talk to her but then these guys with these magic guns showed up... well, everything else about it is in the paper."
"Yeah, I heard two girls talking about her in the locker room."
"We need to figure out who she is!" said Ned.
"What if she wants to stay a secret. Peter wants to stay a secret right?" She looked towards the boy who just nodded and answer. "Then maybe she wants to as well. What if she doesn't have a choice?"
"Maybe she's right, Ned..."
"Yeah... I guess so... Hey, are you coming to acadeca today?"
Peter nodded to him before turning to Cassie. "What about you?"
"Me? I'm not in acadeca."
"It's the first meeting to prepare for regionals. Mr. Harrington lets anyone come to this practice though granted not a lot of people tend to show up..."
Ned reached out to grab her hand. "You should join acadeca it's loads of fun!"
"I don't know...."
"Come on, it's amazing! Plus, Peter and Liz are so smart we barely even do stuff."
Cassie looked back and forth between the boys. She knew she would do well, she was on acadeca on her earth but joining the team would alter this reality drastically. Would that be a bad thing though? She wanted to help change this world for the better... plus Tony wanted her to keep an eye on Peter. Maybe this wouldn't be as bad of an idea as she previously thought.
"Okay sure. Why not?"
"Yes!" Ned said excitedly.
"Awesome," said Peter.
After the last class of the day, AP LANG which was very boring to her, she went to the multipurpose room to meet the decathlon team. When she entered the room, she saw a table set up on a stage, members of the team already setting down their things on the chairs. She saw Peter and Ned. When they saw her, both their faces lit up. Ned waved enthusiastically. while Peter gave a small nod, his cheeks turning red with blush. Before she could even start to walk over to them, someone approached her before she had time to look.
"Hey," said a voice. Cassie looked up to see Zendaya standing in front of her. She tried to keep a calm expression but internally she was jumping off the walls.
"Hi," Cassie replied.
"I'm Michelle."
"Cassie."
"Your the nerds' friend right?"
"The nerds?"
"Parker and Leeds." she clarified.
"Yeah, I am."
"Michelle, stop harassing the new people!" Mr. Harrington said, walking up to the two of them. "Hi, I'm Mr. Harrington, I'm the coach of the Academic Decathlon team."
"I'm Cassie Potts, Peter and Ned said that you were letting new people come to practice today?"
"Yes! We are! No one else has shown up yet but we are. New people are always welcomed!" He motioned for her to follow him into the room. She waved a goodbye at Michelle who just gave her a nod before pulling out a book from her bag. "You can put your stuff down here and then take a seat, everyone is gonna take a turn on stage."
"Thank you," she said as he walked away to stop another student, Cassie thought his name was Abe, from hitting the bell over and over again.
Cassie took a deep breath as she put down her stuff and went to look for a chair in the room. There weren't many people there, only 8 or so, and she knew that would be pretty much everyone for the day. As she glanced around the room, she heard a sudden squeal from the door, looking over to see Liz arriving at practice.
She rushed over, engulfing Cassie in a hug. "I didn't know you were coming to acadeca!" She said excitedly.
"Yeah, Peter and Ned invited me."
They glanced over at the two boys who were trying to make it obvious that they weren't staring. "You know Peter and Ned? They're sophomores, I only know them through this."
"Well... Peter interns for my uncle, I ran into him at school and he introduced me to Ned," Cassie told her, trying to keep Peter's story straight. She needed to follow everything that he said in the movie as to not confuse others and change the timeline in the wrong way.
"Right the Stark Internship how could I forget?"
"All right people we're gonna get started!" Mr. Harrington yelled to everyone in the room.
"Let me put my bag down and I can sit next to you!"
Cassie nodded as everyone scrambled to get ready, Liz sitting next to her just like she said she would. "Okay, everyone knows by now that the theme for this year's competition is Technology and Science in the Modern Century now today we're gonna review the technology side of that. Is everyone ready?" The students sat on the stage nodded, Cassie could see how focused Peter had become.
"Okay, let's begin. What was the last age of technology before our current one?"
Cindy Moon pressed her bell. "The Information Age in 1900."
"Correct. What is the newest form of technology that is said to revolutionize this generation."
Peter dinged in. "Nano Technology."
"Good!" The round went on for 10 more minutes as the students took turns answering the questions. Cassie was surprised by herself how many of the answers she knew. Soon, the round was over. They weren't keeping score since it was just practice but she had to guess that if they did, Peter would have won. "Okay next group!"
Liz nudged her on the shoulder. "Let's go!"
Cassie followed her onto the stage, sitting down in the seat next to her. She looked down at the bell in front of her, trying to prepare herself. With everything that had happened recently, she hadn't devoted enough time and energy to school work, especially not at the level that the decathlon team did. She looked up into the crowd of students who were trying to find seats after answering questions; her eyes met Peter's.
He gave her a warm smile, one that made her feel comfortable and safe. She didn't realize how kind he was, how caring he acted towards his friends. It's hard to get that when watching a movie. You see what is relevant to the plot, not all the little details in between. Maybe that was why Cassie felt so drawn to him now instead of when she watched his movies.
"All right guys you ready?" Mr. Harrington asked, pulling Cassie back to reality. "You guys are gonna focus on the science aspect okay? Let's begin! What is the compound name for iron (III) hydride?"
Sally Avril hit her bell. "FeH₃."
"Correct. What is the name for a monomer for starch and glycogen?"
Liz hit her bell next to Cassie. "Alpha glucose!"
"Yes!"
Cassie shifted in her seat. She was not ready for this. She closed her eyes momentarily, trying to focus herself, getting ready for the next set of questions to come.
"Tertiary structure!" Charlie Murphy yelled at the question asked. "Wait no quaternary!"
"It was tertiary, Charlie. What is the process of bacteria converting ammonia back into nitrogen?"
Cassie knew the answer. By reflex, she reached forward and hit her button before anyone else. "Denitrification."
Everyone turned to look at her, impressed that she was able to out beat anyone else to answer the question. "Good job Cassie!" For the rest of the round, it was like all questions were for her. "What is the equation for the Acceleration of Gravity?"
"9.81 m/s^2."
"What is the ability of a particular soil to absorb and release cations?"
"Cation exchange capacity."
"What is the device that allows the transfer of electrons between the reactants of an oxidation-reduction reaction without contact between the reactants?"
"A voltaic cell!"
Every question asked Cassie had an answer to. By the end of the round, everyone was standing giving her applause. She sheepishly thanked them and got off the stage and walked back to sit in the audience.
"You were amazing Cassie!" Liz told her as they walked off stage.
"Thanks."
"No I mean it, you were like Peter level good. You might be better than him!"
"Hey!" They turned to see Peter standing waiting for their conversation to end. "I heard that." He looked slightly offended.
"Sorry but it's true," Liz said with a shrug. She walked off to go sit with Betty in the audience, leaving Cassie and Peter standing alone.
"You were great," he told her.
Cassie felt her cheeks redden. "Thanks... but I don't believe Liz, you were pretty good as well."
"Yeah, but you were better! You have to join the team it seems only fitting."
She raised an eyebrow. "Do I?"
"Of course. You can't be this good at an activity and then decided you don't wanna play."
"Well, what's stopping me from saying no?"
"Me?" he asked. The two stared at each other for what felt like far too long. "What if you joined for me?"
She didn't know what to say. That felt sincere, this is what it must feel like to be friends with a superhero; to always have someone caring around. "Well I can't say no to you..." she said with a smirk.
A smile crossed his face. "Good, cause I didn't know what I was gonna do if you said no."
"I could never say no to you Pete, the world would flip on its head."