› CHAPTER SEVEN ‹
"Raleigh!"
Raleigh stopped in the middle of the hallway, receiving and ignoring the heated looks from his schoolmates as they were forced to move around him. He bit the inside of his cheek and stuffed his hands into the pocket of his hoodie as Peter Parker bound up to him, leaving his best friend, Ned Leeds, behind. Peter had a lopsided grin as he too put his hands in his pocket to stop himself from fumbling with them—something Raleigh, not too long ago, noticed he tended to do when he was nervous.
Raleigh met his tired blue eyes with Peter's energized hazel ones, and he sighed, knowing where this conversation was about to go.
"What do you want?"
Peter's hands slipped out from his jacket, and they found themselves squeezing the other in worried comfort. "Do you want to come with me after school to do... hero stuff?"
Vigilante, Raleigh wanted to correct him but knew it would do no good. Instead, he let out another heavy breath and ran a hand through the mess that is his ravenet hair. It had been two months since the battle in Germany, and Raleigh's hair had grown to a length that was beginning to aggravate him. He needed to ask Trystan about getting a haircut.
"I've told you, Peter, I'm busy." He didn't give Peter a chance to reason. "With Nationals getting nearer, Liz is doubling down and making sure we're beyond prepared for it, and ever since you left Robotics, I've been a lot busier."
"You were the one who said you were leaving robotics!" Peter exclaimed. "What happened to that?!"
Raleigh let a sly smirk cross his lips. "I said thinking... thinking, Peter." He tapped the boy's forehead, satisfied as his eyebrows scrunched. He moved to his locker and Peter followed with a pout. Raleigh put away some books and turned to Peter with a serious look. "If anything happens while you're out and you need backup or just something, just call me, please. Don't do anything stupid."
Peter agreed.
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Raleigh pulled his phone out from under his desk and read over the messages he had sent to Happy Hogan. Each of his texts were left on 'read' since the male never bothered to reply, and Raleigh knew it was just as terrible on Peter's end since he was really looking forward to another mission. Raleigh was reaching out to Happy, mostly for Peter's benefit, but he would be lying if he said he didn't also have a slither of excitement at the thought of a mission—despite not having time at the moment. The excitement, though, was always buried under the annoyance due to Happy's failure of communication.
"Raleigh?" Mr. Johan called to the boy, bringing Raleigh to snap his gaze away from the phone in his hand and towards his World History teacher. "Care to tell us why the Korean War began?"
Raleigh glanced at the board, seeing a PowerPoint being projected on it. He shut his phone off and placed it into his pocket, and straightened up in his seat. "Because North Korea invaded South Korea." History was relatively easy to Raleigh, so it wasn't hard for him to answer the question, but his round tone gave that away. A few students laughed, and Mr. Johan remained silent. He was looking for a more detailed explanation. Raleigh sighed. "Korea was split after World War Two, and North Korea wanted to reconnect them under communism. And then the United States got involved, and then China got involved..."
"Mhm." Mr. Johan hummed, happy to get a correct answer out of a student. "Make sure to stay focused."
Raleigh nodded and picked his pencil back up.
› › › ›
Once free period popped up, students moved either towards the school exit for fresh air or to their school clubs. For Raleigh Ridley, he was heading in the direction of the Academic Decathlon room with his backpack stuffed with books and notes from his earlier classes. In his arms, he was hugging his review binder filled with detailed notes and the book for the Decathlon Nationals. His pockets were filled with different colored highlighters and pens.
"Oh, you're coming to Decathlon?" Raleigh raised a brow at Peter, finding him just outside the club door. He spun around, jumping slightly, before scratching the back of his neck and nodding. Raleigh smiled, happy to see him doing a normal thing for once in the two months that their lives had changed, and enters the room right behind the boy.
He noticed Liz already hammering away at a group of members and moved to sit beside Sally Avril, who was laying on her stomach and highlighting in the Decathlon book. He caught sight of Michelle Jones on the other side of Sally and smiled at her. Though the girl didn't smile back, she did give him a half-pity wave before going back to reading her book.
He smiled to himself and leaned his back against the wall. Michelle terrified him because of her dry sense of humor, but that was also what Raleigh found most endearing about his classmate. He may not know if she was joking with him or making fun of him, but he still found his short conversations with her memorable and enjoyable.
He moved his hair out of his eyes and started following Sally's example of a good club member, and began studying the work. Somehow during the session, he ended up with one highlighter resting between his teeth and a pen hurriedly scribbling notes on the sides of the book and into his notebook.
"You've never been in the same room as Tony Stark." Flash's loud voice, sounded over Liz's quizzing one.
Raleigh raised his head in confusion, immediately noticing that Peter was speaking with Mr. Harrington, the head of the Academic Decathlon Team.
"Wait." Cindy Moon shook her head in confusion. "What's happening?"
"Peter's not going to Washington," Sally said from beside Raleigh, and he flipped his head to the other boy.
"Excuse me?" Raleigh caught the attention of Peter, but the boy hastily avoided his piercing gaze.
Abe dinged the bell on his desk. "Why not?"
"Really? Right before Nationals?" Liz asked Peter. Disappointment laced in her voice. Raleigh knew Peter had a crush on Liz, but it didn't even seem she could change the boy's mind.
"He already quit marching band and robotics lab." Michelle pointed out, and everyone turned to her. Even Raleigh raised his eyebrows to that. "I'm not obsessed with him. Just very observant."
Liz sighed. "Flash, you're in for Peter."
Flash hummed and then grinned. "I don't know. I gotta check my calendar first. I got a hot date with Black Widow coming up."
Abe dinged the bell again. "That is false."
Raleigh shook his head in annoyance. "Peter, it's only for a couple of days... Surely you can find the time, and I guarantee you Mr. Stark will understand." Peter frowned, and Raleigh returned the same expression before Peter finally dropped his gaze. Raleigh rolled his eyes and was about to turn back to his studying when he felt an attentive stare burning the side of his head.
He turned and sucked in a breath when he saw Michelle staring straight at him. Her eyes were narrowed, and for a few excruciating seconds, she continued staring right at him. When she finally turned back to her book, he let out an uneasy breath. He knew he may be wrong, but to him, it almost seemed as if Michelle was reading him... He knew she was observant—hell, she had just claimed she was a minute ago—but he didn't know if she was so observant to see through what Raleigh was telling Peter.
He allowed his eyes to roam the room, before securing them back onto the book in his lap.
› › › ›
Trystan Dagher handed Raleigh a steaming bowl of spaghetti and sat down beside him on the couch with his own bowl. Raleigh sighed and pushed aside his homework as he leaned into the soft back cushions. The television was on, relaying the recent news, but it was meant more for background noise since Raleigh and Trystan had both been busy.
Stirring his noodles absentmindedly, he watched the television, though Trystan could tell he wasn't really focused on the news and instead focused on something else. After a few minutes, Trystan sighed and turned somewhat to get a good look at the child he had taken guardianship over. He had noticed over the last two weeks that Raleigh had lost a large amount of enthusiasm, and even though Raleigh blamed his schoolwork, Trystan knew it was more than that.
"For your own sake," Trystan started, catching eyes with the younger boy, "it might be good for you to get back out there."
Raleigh lowered his eyes to the dish. He knew what he was talking about. "I'm too busy with everything."
"If you don't want to do that anymore you can talk to me about it," Trystan stated, flicking his eyes to Raleigh's bedroom door, knowing the suit Tony Stark had gifted him was hiding in there.
"That's not—" Raleigh tried to argue, but Trystan cut him short.
"You haven't been you since you stopped using your powers." Trystan reasoned. "You need to do things..."
Raleigh's eyes shifted to the television screen, and Trystan becomes quiet when he turned to the screen. A news lady was relaying news about an accident that had just occurred moments ago. They moved the camera around the completely destroyed and smoking buildings. Firefighters were on site taking care of the fires, and police officers were scattered around speaking with people.
"The beloved Queens' institution, Delmar's Sandwiches, was destroyed in an explosion earlier tonight after an ATM robbery was thwarted by one of Queens' own colorful local crime-stopper, the Spider-Man. As the Spider-Man attempted to foil their heist, a powerful blast was set off, slicing through the bodega across the street."
They showed a short clip from the ATM building's security camera of four men trying to land punches on Spider-Man, who in turn punched them back. It flickered to one of the men in a party plastic Hulk mask firing up an unusual weapon, which sliced through the building and through the security camera. The camera then returned to show the destroyed and smoking deli across from the ATM.
"Miraculously, no one was harmed."
"I'm gonna kill him." Raleigh groaned as he searched for his phone under the mass of papers he had been working on.
Trystan shook his head. "You're not going to kill him."
"I'm gonna fight him." Raleigh corrected, finding his phone and immediately sending an onslaught of messages to Peter.
What the hell is this? – A bank heist? – Didn't I tell you to call me if you see anything weird? – Are you at least alright?
His messages went on as unread, meaning either Peter hadn't seen them yet or he was ignoring Raleigh. Raleigh wasn't sure which would be better, he didn't like the idea of Peter ignoring him, but if he hadn't seen them, there was a chance Peter could be lying in a ditch somewhere. To stop himself from thinking about that, he set his phone down and pulled his attention back onto the TV, which was now on another subject that didn't interest him in the slightest.
Trystan was right. Raleigh needed to get back out there and exert his powers—it was the only thing that made Raleigh feel like himself. Yet, he wanted to focus on the Academic Decathlon Nationals for Liz's sake. She had been working so hard and so passionately to make it there ever since she was a freshman, and he didn't want to be the reason she failed at that. Besides... Raleigh was also hoping to show Tony Stark that he wasn't going to waste away his future anymore since he had helped him regain it after the incident in Germany.
Of course, that was leaving Peter in the dust for the time being after the two had gotten comfortable working side-by-side from the moment they came back home. That didn't mean that he was going to abandon Peter forever, which was why he made Peter agree to call him when he needed help.
If he needed to, he wouldn't hesitate to put the suit back on and abandon his work.
Authors Note:
I'm going to take a couple of days off from updating this while I finish up this part. I only have maybe three or so chapters left before I move onto the next part, then I'll be editing and updating this while writing the next part. Thank you for reading! Make to sure to vote and comment your thoughts! - Destiny xx