HOURS EARLIER:
Peter saw her look in his direction and his eyes widened. He began to climb up the beam he was hiding behind, hoping it was sturdy enough, as she started to make his way over to him. He increased his speed and began to hang upside down from the middle of the bridge. The girl looked behind the beam and then looked up. It was fairly dark and there was no way she could have seen him. He heard something move below him and his gaze shifted there, so did hers. Immediately, her hand shot purple sparks towards whatever moved. It briefly lit up the place where he was, hopefully, she didn't see him.
What she hit appeared to be a pigeon and when he shifted his gaze down, it was no longer there, he could see that the pigeon appeared to have vanished. Holy shit, I need to get the hell out of here. I should tell Tony about this. But where did it go? Peter made his way very quietly to the other side of the beam when the girl went back to leave. She was smart. Typically, the bad guy, in this case, girl, would continue what they were doing without a care in the world. Peter safely made it to the ground and made his way over to Tony's. Even though it was an hour drive away, Peter got there in 30 minutes. Guess since there was no traffic.
When he got to Tony's place he was about to knock on the door and then he remembered. Riley. What if she answers the door? What would I do? I'm in complete uniform. He knocked on the door anyway. There was no answer. He looked up at the window and there was a light on. He knocked one more time. Then, a woman answered the door. "Hi, sorry Mr. Stark isn't here but if you want I can-Peter Parker, what are you doing here? It's really late. I haven't seen you in a year."
"I-I need to talk to Mr. Stark, it's urgent. I think I've found something. Something big," Peter says. "Where is he?"
Pepper started explaining. "He went to go pick up his daughter from the party."
"Oh, crap," Peter said. "So, she could come home any minute now."
"Yeah, I'll get you a change of clothes or something, so she doesn't know it's you," Pepper said, going along with Tony's plan for Riley and Peter. "Best to keep your identity a secret from her."
"Oh, uh, I have a pair in my backpack, I'll be fine," Peter told her. He didn't want to step right into their house because that would be plain rude.
"The bathroom is the first door on the left down the middle hallway," Pepper told him, ushering him inside quickly. When Peter entered the house, it was extremely modern and very big. He couldn't imagine how weird it must have been to Riley to go from this kind of luxury to Midtown. Peter started walking down the hallway and got changed in the bathroom. He peeked out the window to see if he could see their car, but he saw the ocean instead. It was a breathtaking view. When he exited, Pepper was nowhere to be found. Their house was so big, he honestly didn't know where to go.
"Peter, come with me, I'll show you to Mr. Stark's office," Pepper said, appearing out of nowhere, leading him down a flight of stairs in the middle of the left hallway. He made sure to make note of the location. Tony obviously had a much more formal office in the Avengers Tower, but this one was just as nice.
Then, he waited. When Tony finally came down, he looked at the boy in shock. "Peter, what the hell are you doing here?"
"I saw something, someone, Mr. Stark. She had black hair and some sort of powers, it was really crazy," Peter hastily explained.
"Well, that's a pretty vague description. How, when, and where did you stumble upon this person?" Tony asked, taking a notepad out of his desk.
"Well, I wanted to leave the party early because it was boring, and I was about to-"
"Whose party?" Tony asked Peter, cutting him off.
"Uh, this kid that goes to my school, Dean," Peter said.
"My daughter was there, too," Tony said, making casual commentary on something that should be taking seriously. "Okay, continue."
"Well, I was sitting on a roof and I saw these crazy purple sparks from a distance, so I decided I should go check it out. The place she was at was some abandoned construction site. There was some kind of bridge there and she was shooting her stuff at this circle that could have been a portal, and then she saw me, but I got away," Peter said, explaining everything that happened.
"Did you leave anything of yours on the site? She could easily track you," Tony said. "As I am glad you safely made it off the site, I'm still a little annoyed that you went alone. How would someone know if you went missing?"
"Sorry, I'll be more careful next time," Peter said, nodding his head. "Sorry, I rushed over here, when I got here, you weren't even home."
"Don't apologize for that, you did the right thing," Tony said. "Now, my daughter is upstairs right now, she knows someone's here to see me, she just doesn't know who. If she sees you, just say you were here for the internship and you had an urgent question. Hopefully, she'll believe that. You should've been more careful about this."
With a gulp, Peter stood up from his seat and followed Tony upstairs. Sure enough, Riley was just visible enough that Peter could see her standing near the main entrance of the house. Her head perked up from where she was sitting on the ottoman the moment the glass door shut behind them.
Her facial expression changed from curious to confused in a matter of seconds. "Peter? What are you doing in my house?" She asked him, smiling and laughing a little.
God, her smile practically put him in riddles. She looked slightly messier than she did when he saw her earlier, but it made her more attractive for some reason. He nearly forgot to answer he was so entranced in his thoughts. "I-I needed to ask your dad, I mean Mr. Stark a question about the uh, internship."
"Okay, that's a reasonable excuse. How come you left the party early? You said you need to go to the bathroom and you never came out. Where did you go?" Riley questioned him, giving him the where-were-you-last-night look you typically get from your mom.
"I, uh, I, um," Peter said, his heart beating a million times a minute.
"I'm kidding, Peter. I have my secrets you have yours. It's fine," Riley said, chuckling lightly.
Peter let out a nervous laugh. Tony just rolled his eyes. "Okay kiddos, Riley go to bed. I mean it, it's late and we have places to be tomorrow. I'll drive Peter home."
Riley couldn't help but notice that her dad said we when saying they were going places tomorrow. Either he had planned some kind of father-daughter thing Riley didn't know about, or whatever Peter was really there for was big, and he needed her help. When Peter left, Riley remembered what Anastasia had said to her at the party about Peter liking her. She couldn't imagine how he must be feeling now that she was dating Dean.
***
The next morning, Riley was woken up at 7:30 by her dad. "You have to come to a meeting with me. I'll explain what it's about in the car, we have to leave at 8:30."
Riley unwillingly got out of bed and put her hair in a tight bun. She put on a royal blue shirt with black jeans and a blazer. She had to look nice, she was going to be with all of her dad's executives. They ended up leaving earlier than expected, Riley taking a cup of coffee with her.
"So, this meeting, what's it all about?" Riley asked her dad, taking a sip of coffee.
"I want to give them the progress report with Peter, and I need to talk to them about something big happening. It's what Peter told me last night," Tony said, keeping his eyes on the road.
"I knew it!" Riley said. "He would've just emailed you or something if he really had to ask a question."
Tony sighed. "I knew you didn't buy it. There's something out there, it's pretty dangerous. I'll explain more to you when we get to the meeting but I want you to be very careful at school from now on."
"Okay, I'll be more careful," Riley said. How bad could this thing be anyway?
When they got to Headquarters, she followed her dad to the head of the table. She had never been there before and it was actually kind of sad because she had to rush through it. There was already a seat out for her, he must have told them she was coming. She sat down in the swivel chair, kind of nervous. This wasn't her first executive meeting. She was at one before when she was ten when she first developed her abilities and they wanted to ask her about them. That was back when Tony still had the tower. Of course, Tony wouldn't allow them to do tests on his only daughter.
"What are they going to ask me?" Riley asked, curiously.
"How things are going with Peter, if any of his friends know, and just general things if you're worried, don't be," Tony said, smiling at her. "You're a Stark, you're fearless."
Riley smiled at him. The meeting was at 9:45 and people started flooding in. When the meeting had officially started, Tony introduced Riley to them, even though the majority of them already knew who she was. "This is my daughter Riley, the backbone of this operation, and she will be answering any questions you may have about what's going on with the plan."
They went around the table mostly going through the piece of paper with the questions they had to ask her. "How has school been for you?"
"It's been good, I guess. My classes are pretty difficult, but I manage. I have a lot of friends, I guess. But, I'm not sure how faithful they are," Riley said, telling the truth.
"She also has a boyfriend, whom I don't really approve of," Tony said, glaring at Riley somewhat jokingly. She had told him in the car when they stopped at a red light and he flipped out. If she had told him when they moving, they'd probably be hospitalized.
"How's Peter doing?" one of the women asked.
"His grades are good. He doesn't seem to have any enemies, except for the people that bully him. He doesn't really stand up for himself for obvious reasons, so his friends do it for him," Riley says, feeling kind of weird talking about Peter as if she's known him for years.
"Who are his friends?"
"Michelle, she's kind of a loner, but she's still pretty nice. Ned, he's one of Peter's really good friends, but I'm not sure if he knows about the whole Spider-Man thing. Anastasia, she's trouble. I don't really get along with her, but we don't really talk either. She's Peter's best friend."
"Do you think she knows about Spider-Man?"
"I'm pretty sure she does," Riley said, knowing the answer was yes. Generic questions like these were asked, then her dad brought up what happened last night.
"Is his secret going to be safe?" someone asked.
"Yes, she wouldn't tell."
"Last night, Spider-Man reported to me that he saw a woman with some sort of powers shooting them into a portal. We don't know what she is going to do with it, but it can't be any good. He did not get a tracker on her, so that should be our first step in this plan," Tony said.
"How will we know where to find her?" a man asked.
"I've contacted multiple workers to put cameras on each angle of the taller buildings, and there is a monitor that will be on the watch for the next few nights or until we see sparks again," he said. "There was one minor complication though. When Peter was there last night, she had detected his presence and she may have gone into hiding. What I'm not sure of though, is if the evidence is still there. I'll have to get in contact with him so he can direct us to where he saw her."
Riley let all of this information process through her head. Every day there seems to be some kind of crime, whether minor or major in this town. She doesn't get sick of it, she's become accustomed to it by now. Her dad mentioned that he would be going out for patrols later in the week with the team. Riley wanted to tag along, but she knew it would be a no. Riley knew better than to sneak out alone, but she still wanted to go, even though she knew her dad wouldn't allow her.