A/N: Had to delete this story and reupload it because there was something wrong.

This takes place after Homecoming, in the same school year, and before Infinity War. I'm not too sure on any of this timeline stuff so please just suspend your disbelief for the sake of the story. Also, Aunt May doesn't know Peter's Spiderman in this story.

Clara shouldn't have interfered with that ATM robbery last night.

She wasn't some superhero. There was no tacky mask, no stupid spandex suit, or any desire at all to become some makeshift crime fighter. All she had wanted to do was clear her head a bit, but at this point she had completely regretted even sneaking out of her house in the first place. She purposely made sure all of her midnight explorations of New York were never on a school night. The lack of sleep would probably have her falling asleep in most of her classes the next day.

Of course, the one time she decided otherwise and everything had to turn to shit.

It was just her luck to run into two idiots robbing a poor woman at an ATM at 3:00 a.m.— an ordeal that had set her far behind her usual schedule. So now it was five o'clock on a freezing cold January morning, and Clara was walking hastily down the streets of New York in blood soaked clothes, trying to make it home in time to get to school.

She had tried to solve it diplomatically, at first. But when she asked the men to stop, and they just laughed. At just five foot six, they didn't seem to find her very intimidating. That was until she broke one guy's hand, and shoved the other face-first into the ground. She couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for them afterwards. Super-strength wasn't really a distinguishable physical feature, and so they never saw it coming.

The lady she was saving bolted without so much as a 'thank you', and somewhere between it all, one of the robbers had managed to cut her with a penknife, clean across her forearm. Clara hadn't been so much upset about the wound, but rather the new hole in her jacket sleeve that was beyond repair. The pain had started to disappear the second it came. Where the cut used to be was now just smooth skin, nothing more than a thin white scar, and even that was fading. She never asked for her powers, but they had their perks.

After what felt like hours of walking, she finally reached her home.

It was a three-story townhouse in the most expensive neighbourhood in Queens. She glanced up and down the empty street before fitting her fingers in the grooves of the stone wall and pulling herself upwards, climbing with ease until she reached the second floor. She could only imagine how furious her mother would be to find out she'd been sneaking out of the house. For that reason alone she never left or reentered through the front door.

That being said, if her mother ever caught her doing this, she'd have a lot more explaining to do. Blood soaked and breaking into her own house?

Quietly, Clara pulled open the window to her bedroom and climbed through. 6:23 a.m. That left just enough time to shower and eat breakfast before school. She changed out of last night's clothes, and shucked them in a box under her bed so the maids wouldn't find them. Once she was clean and proper, she made her way downstairs to the kitchen. The large curtains of the living room were pulled open, encompassing the floor in morning sunlight, and spanning an incredible view of the city below. It was all still eerily silent.

She was surprised, however, to find her mother sitting at the dining room table.

"Good morning, dear."

Joanna Lockwood smiled at her curtly. She looked as exquisite as she always did. Black hair tied back into an immaculate bun, lips painted a deep red, finely-manicured fingers curled delicately around the handle of her teacup. Clara made sure to smile as she walked to the pantry.

"You're not working today?" she asked the older woman. Her mother worked at a law firm in Manhattan.

"My morning meeting was pushed back," her mother said. "I'll be leaving shortly."

From there, breakfast was the quiet event it usually was; the presence of her mother didn't make it any different. Her mother wasn't particularly one for small-talk, which always made concealing her secret that much easier, among other things. Clara made herself toast and a mug of coffee, and ate at the other end of the table as she organised her school books. Christmas break had just ended, and everything had fallen back into rhythm fast. Between school, her midnight escapades, and her part-time job Clara's schedule was beginning to get too busy to handle.

Her mother broke their silence just as she got up to put her plate in the sink.

"Principal Morita tells me you didn't score well on your last chemistry test."

As if it were never there to begin with, her mother's pleasant facade vanished, replaced with what Clara could only describe as disappointment.

Clara felt herself tense. The one class she struggled with, one of the few tests she'd scored poorly on, and of course her mother had gone out of her way to find out about it. Her mind blanked for a second as she struggled to think of the appropriate response. Offer an excuse? She had only ever made that mistake once in her life when she had failed her fifth grade spelling test, and never done it again. There were no such things as excuses in the eyes of her mother.

It didn't help that her father had been both the founder and owner of New York's leading research facility, Lockwood Labs. "He was a truly brilliant scientist" people had described him to her many times before. If not for the unnerving look of displeasure on her mother's face, Clara might have found the idea her constant struggle with science amusing.

"Well, I expect better, and your father would have too," her mother then continued. There was a brief moment of sadness in her eyes. "I don't have the time nor energy to manage your shortcomings for you."

Clara's mouth tightened into a tense line. Her father was dead. As if throwing around his hypothetical expectations of her really meant anything.

"Of course not," she agreed. "It won't happen again. I'm sorry."

The walk from the townhouse to Midtown High was about fifteen minutes. Her mother had insisted on using their private driver in the beginning of the year, but Clara hated the idea. Most of the school already knew her family was rich, she certainly didn't need to go around reminding them.

Once Clara was inside the building she ducked through the sea of people and made her way to her locker. Most of the faces in Midtown she recognised, but on name basis only. She sometimes wondered what they would think if they knew what she really was. If they knew she'd spent the early hours of the day beating up thugs; that she could lift a car, or her skin and bones magically put themselves back together. Would they fear her? Clara didn't think so. In times like these, most of them would probably think it was cool.

"Clara!"

Her attention turned to find Elias Becker pushing through a crowd of students, grinning as he made his way towards her. His brown hair was still damp from showering, and dripping wet spots into his t-shirt. He'd probably just come from morning basketball practice.

"How was your weekend?"

Stopped a robbery, nearly got stabbed.

"The usual, pretty boring," Clara told him. She took out some books from her backpack and stuffed them into her locker. Like her mother, Elias knew nothing about her secret, and she intended to keep it that way.

"I heard there's a party at Megan Selby's house next Friday. You coming?"

Maria raised her eyebrow. "You hate Megan Selby."

"True," he said, amber eyes shining. "But I love parties, and her hot friend Emily's gonna be there."

"You're a dog."

"If by that you mean I'm loyal and irresistibly cute, thank you. Tell me something I don't know." With the combination of smooth honey skin, strong jawline, and long, dark eyelashes, Elias Becker was undeniably attractive. But Clara would never give him the satisfaction of hearing that. Upon catching the annoyed expression of her face, his grin disappeared. "And I guess I'll take your attendance as a no."

"Good guess."

As Elias began a lengthy dialogue on the inner workings of Megan Selby's friend circle, Clara couldn't help but drown him out. He had been her only close friend since middle school, and had somehow managed to stick around far longer than she had intended. He was just about as cynical of the world as she was, so Clara didn't mind him most of the time.

Their first period was chemistry, the very class Clara was dreading. Within the first ten minutes of class Clara realised her caffeine buzz was beginning to wear off, and Cobbwell had excitedly begun a discussion on intermolecular forces of attraction. The words he was saying went in one ear and out the next, and Clara couldn't tell whether it was because it was boring, or she just wasn't understanding any of it. She sunk back into her seat and shut her eyes for a second. The only way to appease her mother would be to ace the next test. That meant no more wasting time sneaking out in the middle of the night, for now at least. She had to start taking this class a bit more seriously.

Halfway into class, she heard Elias groan quietly from the seat beside her.

"This class will be the death of me."

Since middle school, Elias had been borderline failing every class that wasn't English or History. He was, perhaps, what one would consider more 'street smart'. Truthfully, Clara thought that he'd fair pretty well academically, if he actually put his brain to good use. The problem happened to be exactly that: Elias rarely put his brain to things he didn't want to to, and one of those things just so happened to be schoolwork ("The best education one can ever receive is experience in life," he'd once told her, or something stupid like that.)

"Same," Maria agreed. "My mother's on my back about the last test."

"Shit. You didn't fail it, did you?"

Clara shook her head. "But you know how she is."

Elias gave her an understanding look. She'd confided in him many times before. "What does she want you to be? Biochemist extraordinaire? Steven Hawking? Your mom's a total psycho."

Clara didn't feel the need to point out to him that Steven Hawking was actually a physicist. "I know," was all she said.

"You should try tutoring, or study group," he said, and motioned over to something behind her. "Cobbwell's got Peter Parker helping me after all those tests I bombed at the start of the year." He suddenly got a proud look on his face. "Hated it at first, but haven't failed a test since."

Clara turned her head to the opposite end of the room, to where Elias was pointing. Peter Parker sat near the front row against the far corner. She recognised him from a few of her classes, vaguely. She knew him best as the guy who'd ditched Liz Toomes at Homecoming, which happened right before her father was arrested for selling stolen alien tech. Clara remembered that had been a crazy few weeks for school gossip.

"He's literally getting perfect scores, even has some internship at with Tony Stark or something," Elias continued. "We meet up after school today in the library. I'll let him know you're coming, he probably won't mind."

Clara narrowed her eyes. "I'll pass, thanks."

"Aw come on, why not?" he asked.

"I don't need a tutor."

"Don't need one, or don't want to need one? It's okay to get a bit of help once and a while, you know?" he said.

Clara quickly glanced away, focusing on the haphazard writing in her notebook. Elias' assertiveness was always difficult to deal with. "No," she told him. "I'm just not much of a group learner. Besides, I have work at the diner after school today, I couldn't go even if I wanted to."

Elias frowned disappointedly, and for a moment he seemed to drop it. Then, his eyes narrowed. "You liar," he declared, looking the slightest bit offended. "You only waitress there on Mondays and Thursdays. How stupid do you think I am? Did you really think I'd fall for that?"

Clara shrugged. "You almost did."

"At least try it out," he urged. "Plus, it'd be great to have someone with me for emotional support. Just co—"

Elias' sentence stopped short, and Clara suddenly realised the entire class had grown silent. At the front of the room, Mr Cobbwell's shifted an annoyed stare between the two of them.

"Mr Becker, Miss Lockwood. Is there something important you'd care to share with the class?"

A/N: Leave a review letting me know what you thought! Feel free to point out any errors you see me make in the future, now and in the future (spelling errors, grammar, characters that are OOC). I'm always down to go back and make changes to my writing. Haven't really included any canon characters yet, but they'll definitely come the next chapter!