Note: Sorry if you guys saw the update. I made a mistake but I fixed it.
New Chapter! Yay! Note at the end.
As always, please review :)
Ensuring that her shirt collar was straight and the bruises on her neck were adequately covered with makeup, Kate walked into the school cautiously but with her head still held high.
It was almost surreal to be back in the building after everything that had happened in the last fifteen hours. Hearing faint conversations about the party as she moved through the crowded hallways, none of the kids having any idea of the things that happened in the shadows of their world. Everything was centralized to what happened between the students and the contents of their lives.
None of that mattered now. She had one task to accomplish today and she needed to find a certain webslinger.
Peter was at his normal desk in history class when she arrived. She walked over and dropped her books down on the desk startling Peter from his thoughts.
"Kate!" He said in an urgent whisper. "About the party last night—"
"You didn't do it." Kate said referring to him showing up in his suit. "I know, I heard about it this morning." She continued before he could start speaking again. "We can talk about why later—I got your text about finding something—but there's something I need to tell you."
Peter nodded, realizing that something was different in her demeanor today.
Unfortunately, before she could begin some more students came in and crowded around talking amongst themselves before class started.
"We'll talk at lunch." She said under her breath, knowing Peter would hear it.
He nodded almost imperceptibly, her sharp eyes catching the small movement, letting her know that he heard.
Kate bounced her leg impatiently as she watched the clock. It was frustrating to be sitting right next to Peter and not able to tell him what was going on, but right now there were too many ears that could listen in. Part of her was grateful to that on Thursdays they didn't see Ned until shop class after lunch. This was too important.
Once the bell rang, Peter and Kate slipped past everyone quickly to get into the hallways.
"What's going on?" Peter asked, concern radiating from his expressive brown eyes.
"There is going to be something going down in DC this weekend." She said quietly as they moved through the crowds. "I can't go into a lot of detail here, but someone is going to try capture me."
Peter stiffened. "What? How do you know?" He asked.
Kate spun to walk in front of Peter, facing him, acting like she was simply talking animatedly about something, but she quickly tugged at her collar and let it go giving Peter a brief look at the deep purple bruising on her shoulder that wasn't covered by makeup. It was so quick that no one would notice, but she watched Peter's eyes darken in anger. He had seen it.
…
Peter could hardly think once he saw the horrible bruises that Kate was hiding. The brief glimpse he had didn't tell him what it was, but all he could think about was the someone had hurt her.
"Peter." Kate's soft voice drew his attention as they stood in line in the cafeteria. "I need you to focus."
The room seemed so loud to him at the moment, he barely registered her nearly silent tone though she was standing right next to him. Normally, he could block things out during the day when he focused, but now everything was back to eleven again and he couldn't think. He shook his head as if to clear cobwebs, but it didn't help.
Thankfully, Kate seemed to be aware of what was going on and she carefully guided him through the line with gentle nudges or taps. They got to a secluded table where no one would hear them.
"Breathe, Peter." She spoke, facing him. "Breathe. I'm alright."
He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You aren't alright. You're neck—"
"Is certainly not the worst thing I've gone through." Kate interrupted him. "I didn't show you for you to lose it. I need your help, but you can't do that unless you are calm and focused."
Peter took a few deep breaths, trying to get his composure back. Her words went a long way towards helping him with that. She needs help. This isn't the time to fall apart.
Kate was watching his expression for a moment and was obviously relieved with what she saw as she gave him a smile.
"What do you need me to do?" Peter asked.
"We'll go over it later." Kate said glancing to her right as a group of kids looking for a table came closer. She lowered her voice. "If we hurry, we can get to class before anyone else does."
Peter nodded, catching her meaning and they both ate quickly and dashed out, dumping their trays as they went.
They got to shop class and just as she had predicted, it was deserted. He watched as she went over and turned on the radio, tuning it to some rock station that sounded like what Mr. Stark would listen to regularly before she turned to him.
"We don't have time to talk about things here." She said referring to her problem. "So, tell me what you found last night."
Peter had almost completely forgotten about his encounter with the bad guys in the park. He gave her a brief rundown of the party and how he had almost shown up in the suit but had spotted the explosion from the roof. The following chase and some guy with wings dropping him in a lake made her eyes widen.
"On my way back, I found this." Peter said pulling the broken piece of weapon from his backpack, the purple core still glowing.
Kate's eyes widened and she quickly dropped her backpack on top of it, obscuring it, as the other students filed in along with the teacher. No one really paid attention to them since they were normally early to classes anyways. Once the saws and other equipment was started up and people split apart, Kate dropped her backpack to the ground, and they crowded close together looking at the object.
"Peter, do you know what this is?" Kate asked.
Before he could reply, or ask what it was, because he had no idea, they heard Ned approach.
"Hey, thanks for bailing on me." Ned said coming up on Peter's other side.
"Yeah, well, something came up." Peter said.
Ned finally took notice of the object on the table and his eyes went as wide as saucers. "What is that?"
"I don't know." Peter said, partially answering Ned and partially answering Kate. "Some guy tried to vaporize me with it."
"Seriously?" Ned said. Peter nodded. "Awesome." Peter and Kate both gave him a weird look and he cleared his throat. "I mean, not awesome. Totally uncool of that guy. So scary."
"Well, look, I think it's..." Peter hit the object with a hammer, breaking apart a housing unit around the core. "...a power source."
Kate nodded indicating that it was.
"Yeah, but it's connected to all these microprocessors." Ned commented pointing at a piece. "That's an inductive charging plate. That's what I use to charge my toothbrush."
"Whoever's making these weapons is combining alien tech with ours." Peter said.
"That is literally the coolest sentence anyone has ever said." Ned said in awe. "I just want to thank you for letting me be part of your journey...into this amazing—"
Peter hit the side of the core, knocking it free but creating a small bang. All three teens jumped and looked back at the teacher to see if they were busted.
The old man didn't look up once from his word search. "Keep your fingers clear of the blades." Mr. Roald said.
They turned back to core Kate having quickly retried it from the floor.
"I gotta figure out what this is and who makes it." Peter said.
"We'll go to the lab after class and run tests." Ned replied.
Kate nodded. "Let's do it."
…
Getting Peter to talk about what happened last night had the desired effect, she could see that he was calmer, the analytical side of his brain taking control again. Kate walked with the two after class towards the lab. They had a free period before their final class. Clint would be waiting for her once school ended so she didn't have a lot of time.
"First, we put the glowy thing in the mass spectrometer." Ned advised as they walked.
"We gotta come up with a better name than 'glowy thingy'." Peter said.
Ned nodded. You're right."
How about Chitauri power core?She thought idly.
"Crap."
Peter's comment drew her attention up to the shady looking individuals that were just entering the building at the other of the hall.
"Come on, come on, come on." Peter said getting out of the hallway pulling her with him and Ned following. They peered around the corner together. "Hey, that's one of the guys that tried to kill me."
Kate watched as they walked down the stairs to where the shop class was. Well, shit.
No rest for the weary. Let's see how this all turns out. I'm thinking I'll have one more chapter and then we'll be in DC.