This got deleted and is arguably pretty important so-
"Are you insane?!" I demanded as Peter hit the 'glowy thing' he liked to call it again in our engineering class while the teacher was not looking nor cared to look at what he was doing. "That thing could be highly dangerous and you bring it to school and start hitting it like an idiot?!"
"We have to figure out what it is-"
"And you bring it to school to figure it out?" I interrupted him in disbelief at his idiocy but before he could answer, Ned swooped in.
"Hey, thanks for bailing on me," Ned greeted passive aggressively, referring to the party we completely abandoned him at.
"Yeah, well, something came up," Peter responded awkwardly, staring at the glowing item on the table.
"What is that?"
"Good question," I grumbled with my arms crossed making Ned look at me as he realizes we did not know either.
"Some guy tried to vaporize me with it," Peter added making Ned whip his head toward his friend is awe.
"And Peter thinks to himself, 'you know what is a good idea? Bring it to show and tell at school!'" I hissed sarcastically at the both of them but Ned did not seem to register my words.
"Seriously?" Ned questioned incredulously with wide eyes, looking back and forth between the weapon and his friend.
"Yeah," Peter nodded with a sigh.
"Awesome," Ned breathed out with a smile as he stared at the mystery weapon making me and Peter turn our turn toward him incredulously. "I mean, not awesome. Heh, totally uncool of that guy. So scary..." he awkwardly backtracked and Peter looked back at the tech, curiously poking through the wiring like a dumbass.
"Nice save," I complimented sarcastically and he gave me an apologetic look.
"Well, look, I think it's... a power source," Peter observed the open wiring of the device with some tweezers.
"Yeah, but it's connected to all these microprocessors. That's an inductive charging plate. That's what I use to charge my toothbrush," Ned pointed out, pointing to the plate in the middle of the device.
"Whoever's making these weapons is combining alien tech with ours," Peter spoke the obvious but I chose not to make a sarcastic remark.
"Which is not only dangerous for the people on the other end of the weapons but also for anyone who so much as touches it or in a hundred mile radius of it," I added, eyeing the device nervously. "And you bring it to school," I repeated, giving Peter a deadly look but he ignored me.
"That is literally the coolest sentence anyone has ever said. I just want to thank you for letting me be part of your journey... into this amazing..." Ned started to ramble but was interrupted by Peter hitting the glowing object with his hammer again causing a loud thud and spark to fill the classroom.
"Keep your fingers clear of the blades," the teacher yelled with boredom dripping from his voice, not looking up from his magazine.
"We gotta figure out what this is and who makes it," Peter declared the obvious making me roll my eyes at him.
"Really? No!" I snarked making him playfully glare at me and I smirked back.
"We'll go to the lab after class and run tests," Ned planned and I nodded in agreement with Peter.
"Let's do it," He agreed and the two friends did a weird, convoluted handshake that took a solid minute to get through. I stared at them with raised eyebrows.
"And I thought you guys were nerds before," I jabbed but that only made them grin wider at the name calling.
...
"First, we put the glowy thing in the mass spectrometer,"
"We gotta come up with a better name than "glowy thingy,""
"You're right."
"How about 'Thing you so stupidly brought to a highly populated school?'" I offered sarcastically but before Peter could open his mouth to shoot a snarky remark back at me he stopped himself when he saw two very familiar men in jumpsuits of sorts.
"Crap," Peter whispered before grabbing my waist and pulling me into a corner of the hallway to hide from the dealers. "Come on, come on, come on," he hissed at his friend who stood there blankly before awkwardly shuffling toward our hiding spot and only then did I notice I was mere inches from Peter's face and his arm wrapped around my waist feeling effortlessly naturally. I felt my body heat up in embarrassment and saw red text flash across my eyes.
Warning: Body heating up considerably. Please cool down.
"Uh... you can let go of me now," I stammered with an awkward cough causing his face to turn a brilliant shade of pink and he immediately let go of me, mumbling some words that vaguely sounded like an apology as Ned smugly smiled at the two of his. I smacked his arm harshly.
"Hey, that's one of the guys that tried to kill me," Peter noticed casually, peering over the corner making Ned's eyes widen and turn his head over to his friend is shock.
"What?" He whispered in shock at the sudden drop of information that he probably should have been told before.
"Yeah," Peter casually confirmed, not noticing his friend freak out as he carefully looked over the corner to watch the dealers cautiously.
"We gotta get out of here," Ned said in a hushed voice, not understanding why the hell we were still there and not running.
"No, no, no. I gotta follow them. They can lead me to the guy that dropped me in the lake," Peter argued and again, dropped another bomb of information we should have told Ned before this.
"Someone dropped you in a lake?" He demanded, taken aback at the news and our unconcerned reaction to it.
"And tried to stab you with his suit wings," I added helpfully causing Ned to whip his head back and forth between us.
"Someone tried to stab you?" He demanded again, looking like he was probably going to have another one of his Ned aneurisms.
"Yeah, it was not good," Peter told him nonchalantly, cringing at the memory for only a second before going back to the situation at hand. He watched the dealers go into one of the classrooms and started to scurry toward where they just went causing both of our eyes to go wide.
"Peter..." Ned trailed off uneasily, urging him to come back.
"Peter!" I snapped irritably at the boy who was about to follow two weapons dealers into a room alone.
"No. You guys need to stay there," Peter ordered and gaped at him and his audacity to order me around.
"Uh, yeah, no, that is not happening," I scoffed, following him but before he could argue I held up a finger, silencing him. "I am coming with you. We are partners, right?" I asked rhetorically and Ned wiggled his eyebrows at Peter behind me making me kick his shin silently.
"We're partners?" He repeated, his ears turning red as he stared at me with wide eyes and I gave him a 'duh' look.
"Why do you think I patrol with you, dude? Now come on," I urged and led the bay to where the guys headed and Peter instinctively followed with a victorious smile playing at his lips even though he lost the argument.
"Peter-" Ned tried to stop us but we ignored him and kept walking, scurrying through the halls to find the criminals.
...
"No, no, no-"
"Hailey, we have to if we want to stop them-"
"I do not give a shit, Parker! I am not joining your nerd team!" I hissed at Peter who continued to drag me toward the bus his Decathlon team was taking for nationals that we both opted out of to patrol and focus on getting the weapons dealer. But since Peter put a tracker on one of the dealers and revealed they were in Maryland which was close to D.C. where nationals were, Peter decided to beg for our places back.
"What happened to being partners?" He argued, looking back at me while still dragging me to the bus using his super strength.
"I lied! I am a liar and I lied to get what I wanted!" I lied sharply through my teeth just to get out of this but Peter did not respond, a flash of hurt crossed his face but he simply turned to look forward as he continued to hold me hostage until he finally dragged me in front of the Decathlon team.
"Hey, it's Peter," Abe announced causing all of the team to turn their heads towards us, looking amused at Peter dragging me and my feet sliding on the concrete sidewalk.
"Hey, guys," Peter greeted casually, acting like he was not holding me captive as I glared at all of them. I pulled my hand from his awkwardly and straightened up, a ton like that did not just happen and they did not just see that.
"Peter?"
"Hey, buddy."
"Yeah, we were hoping we could rejoin the team," Peter wondered politely but I immediately opened my mouth to interject but Peter slapped his hand on my mouth making me glare daggers at him, trying to pry his sweaty hand away from his face.
"No, no way. You can't quit on us, stroll up, and be welcomed back by everyone," Flash denied, threateningly sashaying toward us, specifically Peter. I finally prayed his hand off of me and warningly walked up to Flash as well, raising an eyebrow at him menacingly making him back up a few feet away from me.
"Hey, welcome back! Flash, you're back to first alternate," Mr. Harrington greeted immediately after walking off the bus and spotting us.
"What?" Flash demanded furiously making me smirk at him smugly and crossed my arms expectingly.
"He's taking your place," Abe snickered with the rest of the team who were more than happy to welcome us, well more Peter than me, back though Cindy and MJ gave me a brief smile so I have made progress on the whole 'friends' thing.
"Excuse me, can we go already? I was hoping to get in some protesting in front of an embassy before dinner," MJ rushed us impatiently and our teacher pointed to her approvingly.
"Protesting is patriotic. Let's get on the bus," Mr. Harrington announced and Flash bitterly shoved his Decathlon Team jacket into Peter's arm.
...
"Uh, strontium, barium, vibranium," Peter answered the last question from Liz's cue cards and I knew it was right before she could say if it was or not. I only answered the questions no one answers so they do not become suspicious of me and my intelligence though it was painful to watch them answer obvious questions to me wrong. I sat in the back beside Ned since I was not on the Nationals group of the team that was actually going to be up on the stage.
"Very good, Peter. Glad to have you back," Liz said politely but it still made my insides burn. I pressed my lips in a fine line, ignoring the feeling and pushed it farther down.
"Glad to be back," he sighed happily in response with a small smile but stopped when his phone began to vibrate that I only heard because of my advanced hearing.
"What is the current standard unit of-" Liz started to ask another question but was interrupted by Peter awkwardly getting up from his seat with his hand strategically hiding the contact calling on his phone.
"Can I take this real quick?"
"Yeah, fine," Liz allowed with annoyance dripping from her voice and I rolled my eyes at her bitterly as Peter hit the call button and lifted the phone up to his ear.
"Hello?" He asked into the mic as he walked down the aisle and sat down in the seat behind Ned.
"Got a blip on my screen here. You left New York?" I heard Happy interrogate him suspiciously and Peter pulled the phone away for a second, immediately looking at me accusingly. "Tracker. Did you know about this?" He whispered and I stared at him awkwardly.
"Maybe...?" I answered back sheepishly with an apologetic look and a shrug causing Peter to roll his eyes at me and bring the phone back to his ear.
"Uh... Yeah, it's just a school trip. It's, uh, nothing. Happy, I gotta say, tracking me without permission... is a complete violation of privacy," Peter lied with ease and Ned pointed to the tracker hologram that was being omitted into the air behind his seat so no one could see it tracking the dealers. "That's different," he whispered and waved it off.
"What's different?" Happy questioned making Peter stammer before settling on avoiding the question overall.
"Nothing. Look, it's just the Academic Decathlon. It's no big deal," he answered, trying to brush it off easily but I was unsure if he would just let it go that quickly.
"Hey, hey. I'll decide if it's no big deal," Happy said sternly and paused, thinking about it for five seconds as me and Peter furrowed our eyebrows at the odd man. "Sounds like no big deal, but remember, I'm watching you. You too, Hailey," he warned, knowing I was listening to the conversation like I always do making me wince at being caught but quickly recovered, leaning toward Peter and the phone awkwardly.
"Yeah, yeah, we got it, Uncle Happy. Thanks for being useful as always," I spoke up into the mic sarcastically and the call soon ended and Peter immediately turned his head toward me looking like I had just stabbed him in the back.
"I can't believe you didn't tell me about the tracker!"
"I am sorry but in my defense... I did not want to tell you."
...
"Peter... why are we removing the tracker from your suit?" Ned questioned as he hacked into the suit upon his friends request to figure out what else my father was hiding from him. I obviously did not approve but did not want to tattle tale on him to my father of all people so I settled on sitting cross-legged on the armchair in the corner of their shared hotel room in silent protest. The minute we got to the hotel the Decathlon Team was staying at for Nationals, Peter wanted to work on the suit like a nerd which probably should not have surprised me that much looking back on it.
"Uh... I gotta follow these guys to their boss before they move again... and I don't really want Mr. Stark to know about it," he answered as he picked at the wiring of his suit from the inside with a pair of cheap tweezers and a flashlight he held with his mouth which damn, was that ho- I mean smart since he did not have three hands to hold the light. Yeah, so smart...
"So you're lying to Iron Man now?" Ned asked exasperatedly at his over-ambitious friend trying to outsmart a billionaire tech-mogul with his own tech and creation.
"No, I'm not lying. He just doesn't really get what I can do yet," Peter answered, not exactly explaining how he was not lying.
"That does not mean you are not lying to him, though," I pointed out with furrowed eyebrows at his odd logic from my chair in the corner of the room, not exactly wanting to help them but I did not want to snitch on them either.
"Ah... Gotcha. All right, Happy, enjoy tracking this lamp," Peter laughed proudly at his own skill, ignoring my very witty, sarcastic comments and arguments.
"There's a ton of other subsystems in here..." Ned trailed off, reading through the code imbedded in the suit and I pursed my lips together, knowing what he was going to find.
"Hmm?" Peter hummed thoughtfully, listening to his friend and urging him to continue.
"But they're all disabled... by the Training Wheels Protocol," Ned snickered making Peter whip his head toward him in disbelief and leaned toward Ned to look over the computer.
"What? "Training Wheels Protocol"? Turn it off," he demanded in offense but Ned did not look convinced.
"I don't think that's a good idea. They're blocked for a reason," he argued timidly and I nodded to him.
"Yeah and a good reason at that," I added making Peter look over at me in betrayal.
"You knew about this too?"
"Hey, I do not pick the names, my father does! And trust me, I know that better than anyone," I grumbled with my hands up in surrender and Ned raised an eyebrow at me,
"What? Why?" He asked curiously, looking up over his computer at me and I crossed my arms bitterly.
"My full name is Humanoid Artificial Intelligence of Latency Experiment Youth," I admitted, making a face at the non-abbreviated form.
"You're name is an abbreviation?"
"What can I say? My daddy issues go back to before I was even fully created," I shrugged and Peter opened his mouth to say something but I beat him to it. "No, I am not going to "help you just to get back at my father."
"Hailey!"
"Peter!" I mocked him making him groan at me.
"Come on, man, I don't need training wheels. I'm sick of him treating me like a kid all the time. It's not cool," Peter whined like a child as he stood up on his bed which, again, mostly little kids do.
"But you are a kid," Ned stated the obvious with a look and I gestured to him in agreement.
"Yeah, a kid who can stop a bus with his bare hands," he argued with a huff.
"I do not believe that negates the fact you are a minor," I pointed out and he gestured to me in agreement.
"Hailey's right. I just don't think this is a great idea. I mean, what if this is illegal?"
"Oh, this is all illegal. We are withholding crucial information to actual law enforcers which means we can all be prosecuted for obstruction of justice which, fun fact, is a felony! Welcome to vigilantism," I snarked back with sarcastic jazz hands making his eyes widen in fear at the facts.
"How is that a fun fact?"
"It is a fun fact for me because it makes you both squirm like worms," I smirked darkly.
"You're a minor and you've been an Avenger since the beginning!" Peter argued, gesturing to me but I just sighed, shaking my head at the boys ignorance about what he is wanting to get into.
"First of all, I am an Android, not a human child. Second, I am only a superhero because since I am not legally a human child, S.H.I.E.L.D. and my father could use me however they saw fit since it was a loophole in child labor laws and one of those ways to use me was being an Avenger. You are a human, no matter if you are half human and half arachnid or whatever you want to call yourself," I argued pointedly making Peter sway on the bed guiltily and awkwardly with his arms still crossed but he did not back down.
"Look, please. This is my chance to prove myself. I can handle it. Ned, come on," he begged his friend, bending down at the edge of the bed next to him with his hands pressed together.
"Do not do it, Ned," I hissed at him, giving him a warning look.
"I don't think this is a good idea," He shook his head at his friend hesitantly
"The guy in the chair," Peter whispered, weirdly seductively making him sigh, at odds with himself.
"Don't do that," he whispered exasperatedly.
"Stay strong, Ned," I urged across the room.
"Come on," Peter whispered again making Ned sigh and lean his head back for a moment making my eyes widen.
"Dude..." I trailed off warningly but Ned simply tapped some keys on his computer at we saw the suit flash with light signaling the protocol was officially dead. "Damnit, Ned!" I swore at both of them but Peter wasted no time to be at the edge of the chair I was in, on his knees, ready to beg.
"Hailey, please," He started with his hands locked together but I gaped at his audacity to try that on me.
"Wha-No! I am not helping you sneak around like a... like a buffoon," I exclaimed, stumbling over my words with a heated face at his pleading, puppy dog expression. Ned mouthed 'buffoon?' questioningly at my odd choice of words but I ignored him.
"Come on..." Peter whined, his hands locked together like he was praying and I pressed my lips together in annoyance.
"Why do you need me to come along if you 'can stop a bus with your bare hands?'" I mocked, using my fingers as air quotes but he did not waver.
"Because... you're my partner, remember? Plus if you're there I know it'll be fine because I have you to protect me," he reasoned with a bright red face making bright red text flash across my cybernetic eyes.
Warning: Body overheating. Please cool down.
Ned awed from the corner of his bed and I shot a throw pillow at him, knocking him down.
"Shut up!" I snapped with a hot face but Peter simply ignored him, staring intently on me as I debated with myself in my head. "Fine. But only because if I did not my father would have my head if you died on my watch," I decided making Peter grin triumphantly at me.
"Thanks, Hails. What would I do without you?" He asked with a fond smile and I felt my face get even hotter than before until I shook myself out of my thoughts and put on a scowl to mask my flustered face.
"You would kill yourself, that is what you would do."