Two months later
Arriving at school, Rosabella picked at the cat hairs stuck to her shirt. Through the shoves and chatter of her fellow students rushing to see their friends before the first bell, she searched for Liz and the others.
Ro didn't have many friends. Liz Toomes was her best friend which meant she hung out with a lot of people, but she could never quite bring herself to call them her friends. They were Liz's and they just so happened to be nice enough to include her in everything they did. She couldn't read minds, not in the way she could read machines, but it was clear there was a barrier between them. Ever since she'd gotten her powers she'd become more secretive and closed off. Other teens picked up on her hiding a part of herself. No one suspected her to have powers, but the suspicion that there was more to her than she let on was enough for her to push everyone away.
Everyone but Liz. She'd befriended Liz in her freshman year and while she's never told her more than others about her nightlife their friendship was strong. She'd joined the decathlon team with her, she volunteered to be a part of the homecoming committee when Liz asked for help, Ro's social life would have been close to nothing without the other girl. She was the technopath's anchor to civilian life. It sometimes felt like their friendship was the last shred of normalcy in Ro's life.
The others found her first. Betty spotted her and the group jumped at the opportunity to share the latest gossip they'd been discussing.
"Did you hear about Mr. Ramsay's new car?"
"The one he brings up every two minutes during math? I think everyone has. "
"Flash almost crashed into it this morning."
While not one to keep up with Midtown's gossip, imagining Flash Thompson freaking out about almost ruining his dad's car while simultaneously receiving detention from Mr. Ramsay instantly put her in a good mood. Gossip and the high schoolers sharing it could be cruel, but this felt like karma. Flash was a bully and when he was held accountable for his actions, Ro always made sure to wave at him from the sidelines.
"I wish I could have been there to see his face." She said.
The others returned to sharing details of the events they probably had not even witnessed first hand either. As they walked to their first class, Liz pulled her ahead, looping their arms together.
"I forgot to ask you, but can you help me hang the banner for Homecoming during free period?"
"Have I ever told you no?"
"Is it crooked?" Liz asked from the top of the ladder.
Betty gave her instructions while Rosabella continued to hold the ladder. The two girls had been acting suspicious ever since they'd started working on the hanging the homecoming banner. Betty kept mentioning wanting more serious "co-workers" on the school's news show. It was no secret she and Jason did not have the best chemistry on screen, but while everyone who'd seen them as co-anchors had felt the cringe, Betty made a point to never acknowledge it.
Liz had been making cryptic comments about trying new things even though she'd never had a problem doing that in the past. The two girls were talking to each other, but about totally different things, it was almost as if they weren't even listening to each other. Ro knew that they had something in mind, the long pause in their conversation was telling her they were tiptoeing around something.
"So… Betty, what's the new segment about again?" Liz asked, failing to sound casual.
So this was about a new segment in Midtown High's news show, but why were they hesitant to talk about it around her? Ro had never shown an interest in the show. The whole thing was made without much students, budget or equipment. The result was a painfully awkward experience, but it was theirs and at very least you could laugh at it. That was the most thought Ro had given it, not that she'd ever tell that to Betty. The girl was determined to make it work and everyone knew she basically carried the whole thing on her own.
"You know it's a segment on superheroes, things like student's theories on Spider-Man's identity, thoughts on the whereabouts of missing avengers" Betty looked up at Liz obviously avoiding eye contact with the girl holding the ladder.
That was for the best considering Ro's face was all too readable as many thoughts hit her at once. First, they couldn't possibly discuss Spider-Man at school any more than people already did, that was just not good for Parker, or her considering she'd have to bend herself over backwards to keep him from slipping up. And second-
"Like an opinion piece on the Sokovia accords?" All pretences were dropped as the girls both turned their gaze to Ro. And second, she might be trusted into the spotlight.
"No! Nononononono. Forget it, I'm not doing it."
"Told you she'd say no." The blond wrinkling her nose.
"Come on, you'd be the best for it. Betty got the idea from you. Her and Jason can't host every single segment, so we thought you could."
Ro bit her cheek. Of course, she just had to let passion take over one too many times and give them the idea to dig even more into powered people. She couldn't afford to associate herself furthermore with those people and discussions.
"I thought everyone was tired of hearing me rant about quote-unquote heroes." She said using fingers quotes.
"Hey watch the ladder." Liz yelped from the top. Ro sent an apologetic smile her way, putting her hands back on the ladder.
"Seriously, now you want me to rant in front of the whole school."
"We thought we'd ask, just this morning you were saying you can never tell me no"
"Well, I'm a pretty good liar. Anyway, I'm busy you know with homecoming." She shrugged at their current activity.
Betty scoffed and crossed her arms. Ro didn't care if they didn't buy it. It's not like she could tell them the truth. Yeah, no, I'm going to have to pass, because you see I'm afraid my secret powers will be found out if I take this on. But you go ahead haha, just don't go look at Parker too much either. Thinking of Parker for a second, she considered the advantage she could have in taking the job. She could take control of the narrative and steer the conversation clear of any compromising conversations, but she felt already so involved in his Spider-Man activities, always spreading herself thin to keep his low profile. Given another minute she might have changed her mind, but her inability to stand down when backed into a corner got the best of her as Liz tried a last effort to sway her.
"You're not that good of a liar considering homecoming is over once it passes in a couple weeks."
"The decathlon team." Ro offered without missing a beat.
"After the nationals, it won't be that time-consuming."
"Babysitting, and looking for colleges, and homework and Netflix and just life in general."
"Jeez, I get it." Liz said with biting back a smile for Betty's sakes.
"And on that note, I'm gonna go look for other recruits like I should have been all along." The anchor said walking away in a hurry.
"She's not mad at you, she's mad I made her wait to pitch the idea so I could talk to you about it. Let me finish tying this up and I'll get down so we can get going too."
Ro nodded absentmindedly her eyes already wandering around the room. Her gaze scanned over the faces of the midtown's populous landing on Parker. Peter Parker, everything always came back to him these days. She'd sworn to herself to keep an eye on Spider-Man and now he seemed to be everywhere she looked. He was in her decathlon team, and well he had been before but now she was actually aware of it. And here he was again ogling at her best friend with his own best friend, Ned. Probably discussing her choice of outfit or her hair or whatever teenage boys obsessed over when having a crush. She glared in their direction, Parker's spidey senses were bound to alert him that he'd been caught.
Ned, on the other hand, could be excused, at least from sensing that someone was watching. He was Peter's best friend and was never far from the latter. He was slightly more talkative and equally as nerdy. Ro had witnessed him talking Peter's ears off many times during decathlon practice, gushing about everything from Star Wars to Stark's latest tech. He and she were friendly. Ned always made her feel less awkward whenever she got stuck in between Peter's stutter and Liz.
The boys' heads snapped towards the end of their table. Michelle Jones had spoken. She rarely did, but she was no doubt observant and never missed a chance at calling someone out. In this instance, she must have expressed how creepy the boy's starring was. While Ro was wondering about their conversation, the boys turned again, eyes glued to her this time.
She sent a wave their way with a smirk. She felt no embarrassment at being found staring, but the same couldn't be said for the boys. Peter's face turned red and he sunk into his seat. Ned lit up waving back, but he not so subtly muttered to his friend, no doubt stating the obvious. They'd been caught.
Decathlon practice was often a highlight of Ro's day. It was a place where Ro felt she belonged and with her and Liz being the only seniors on the team, she felt like a big sister to many of her fellow teammates. When Mr. Harrington gave the position of the team captain to Liz, it was an unspoken agreement that Ro would be her right hand. The girls pretty much took charge of the practices. Liz was the stern mom, the one who called for order when things got off track. Ro was the big sister who egged the others on from over Liz's shoulder, occasionally putting her foot down to back up her friend.
As that day's practice unfolded, Ro sat beside Liz who quizzed the teammates on stage. That year being the girls' last, Liz was hyperfocused on bringing the team to their full potential. That meant Ro was also stepping up her game. If her best friend had set expectations for how she wanted that year's decathlon to go, she'd be damned if she let anyone get in the way of Liz's goal. It is that loyalty to her friend that made her speak up. It was not at all because she was fed up with how much Peter had been bringing up the "Stark internship" the last couple of weeks, at least that's what she'd tell herself afterward when thinking the conversation over.
"Wait what's happening?" Cindy asked from the stage only just noticing Peter's conversation with MR. Harrington.
"Parker's bailing on us a week before nationals," Ro answered in their place. The dam broken everyone shimmed in with their questions and comments.
Cindy immediately dissolved in a string of nos in protest. Abraham who sat next to her spoke up at the same time asking why Peter couldn't come to Washington. Liz, seeing her plans for the nationals crumble before her, added: "Really right before nationals?"
Michelle won everyone's attention when she observed that he'd already quit marching band and robotic's club.
"I'm not obsessed with him, I'm just very observant." She defended herself.
The same couldn't be said for Ro, she was slightly obsessed with the boy, at least when it concerned his alter ego, which at the moment was sort of the case. The Stark Internship excuse could only be used so many times.
"Michelle's right, you've already missed two practices this month. I know what you're doing with Tony Stark is important, but I think Iron Man would admire a guy who stands by the people counting on him. You can't just continue to drop everything, devoting all your time to one the internship. It's not healthy. Plus, flaking on us last minute on the off chance of an emergency at your internship, not cool." She scolded.
Toeing the line between giving him advice he really needed without letting on that she knew more than the others in the room wasn't her forte, but she still did a better job than him at covering things up. At least that's what she told herself as she missed the raised eyebrow MJ sent her way.
"Flash you're in for Peter." Liz said to put an end to the debate.
Flash huffed stretching in his chair. "I don't know. I gotta check my calendar first. I got a hot date with Black Widow coming up."
From the stage, Abraham hit the bell. "That is false."
Ro laughed. Liz rolled her eyes and like that practice was back on track.
But as the team later moved towards the cafeteria to go eat lunch together, the subject circled back to Peter. Halfway through lunch and they were still droning on about it.
"We don't have anyone else as good at physics." She told Peter having now resorted to flattery as a ploy to get him to change his mind.
"You have Flash." He retorted gesturing towards the other boy as if trying to physically move the attention away from himself. Flash tried to agree only for Abraham to cut him off.
"Everyone prefers Peter." He said with his usual deadpan candor. Ned nodded vigorously all too willing to support his friend.
Ro sat across from Liz, next to Peter. She could feel him jittery beside her. While everyone had been expressing their grievance at his abandon of the team, he'd been eating quickly defending himself here. He was seconds away from bolting, she could feel it. It wasn't much of a surprise he was always running from his responsibilities to go accomplish his "duties" as Spider-Man.
Sometimes she wished she could just shake him and lecture him about how his priorities were all wrong and how being an Avenger at fifteen was not smart, but for that, she'd need to reveal a part of herself she'd never willingly shared with anyone yet. No matter how frustrating it could get to watch a kid fool around in spandex thinking himself invincible and ready for the big leagues, she wasn't ready to make herself that vulnerable. After all, she didn't hate him, but she also didn't trust him with her deepest, darkest secret.
"They're not going to do a physics challenge two years in a row and Ro can do fine if they do" Peter said bringing her out of her thoughts.
"Don't get me wrong, I could, but why should I?" She glared at him. Like she was going to pick his side. "I already have my specialty with computer science I don't care to be responsible for two whole subjects on my own. Especially when you don't have a valid excuse not to come"
"Guys, I'm sorry." Peter apologized, standing up.
The team booed him and threw food and garbage at him as he walked away. It could have been teasingly affectionate, but it wasn't. This food fight was one-sided and reeked of disappointment.
"Come on guys." Liz scolded getting up too. Ro caught her glare and immediately knew she was required to follow her friend as she chased after the boy.
Catching up, she fell in steps with them and stayed silent not knowing what Liz expected of her, she'd already lectured him during practice and pushed him to leave the table. Any word from her now might send him running. She settled for listening and walking on the other side of Peter to keep him from slipping away while Liz made her last attempt at keeping him on the team.
"Look, I get it, it's a lot to juggle everything and when I was a sophomore I struggled too, but we're really counting on you." Her friend said softly.
"I know." Peter started to ramble off excuses once again.
"Don't you want to go to DC." She sent a look at Ro from over his head.
"Yeah, see the White House, spend time with Liz… and the rest of the team of course." Ro offered weakly.
"I do." Peter said without a blush or stutter at the mention of spending time with Liz. Truly there was no changing his mind. "It's just mister Stark-"
"Fine." Liz turned on her heels giving up. Peter tried in vain to call after her.
Ro surprised herself and Parker as she stayed. Too tired for arguing, but too fed up not to stand by her best friend she explained. "It's our last year, she wants it to be perfect and that includes winning the decathlon with her as captain. Flash doesn't compare to you, with physics or otherwise."
"I-"
"Save it, we've all heard it a thousand times. Look, the world is not going to implode just because you leave town for a couple of days. And let's be real if it does Stark can have you on a plane in minutes. Just think about it. Your life shouldn't revolve around your internship."
A/N: First, I want to say thank you to all the people who faved and followed. Then I want to say the biggest thanks those who took the time to comment on my first chapter, it kept me going and made my day every time I read one. Special shout out to the person who commented as a guest, I couldn't respond through a PM, but you told me everything I needed/wanted to hear so I'm thanking you here. That's it. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Finally, a remider that I have edits for Ro and am always ready to chat over on my tumblr at anotherunreadblog.