Chapter 3: Cool or a Loser
Peter's knee bounced under the lab table in his Chemistry class. He had been thinking about Mr. Stark's phone call all weekend. He was just waiting to get a glimpse of the new girl for himself, to see exactly what made her so special and why Mr. Stark had asked him to keep an eye on her.
Safe to say, she wasn't what he was expecting. Peter thought it might have been wrong of him to assume that she'd be tall, blonde, and have eyes that cut right through a room. And confident. He thought she would strut into the classroom as if it was nothing, because if she knew Tony Stark, then she had to have seen worse things than a high school chem lab.
First of all, she was short, had warm light brown hair, and scared doey eyes hidden behind a large pair of glasses. Her general appearance was enough to dash Peter's expectations, but she was also wearing a yellow raincoat over a large gray sweater, and her demeanor screamed extremely nervous and doesn't want to be here.
She had come in after class started, accompanied by another student who introduced her to the teacher and left in a rush. The teacher, an African-American man with graying hair glanced out at the class after speaking to the girl in a hushed voice.
"Who would like to partner with Edie for the rest of the semester, so she gets caught up?"
Peter didn't want to think about how embarrassingly fast his hand shot up. Or how Flash snickered behind him.
"Peter? Okay. Edie, if you'll have a seat next to him, we'll get started."
The girl, without meeting Peter's gaze, sat down next to him.
"Hey, I'm Peter," he said, almost whispering.
The girl met his gaze for a brief second and gave a small smile. "My name's Edie."
"Nice to meet you," he said.
"Nice to meet you too."
Peter turned back to the front as the teacher began giving instructions.
Not soon enough, the class was over, and as students filed out into the hallway, Peter managed to catch the new girl before she disappeared out of sight.
"Hey, Edie, wait up!"
The girl turned and stared at him.
"Would you like to eat lunch with me and my friend Ned?"
She smiled and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Yes, I think I would like that."
Peter grinned and started in the direction of the cafeteria.
"So what brings you to Midtown?" he asked.
"It's mandatory by law," said Edie simply, while struggling to keep up against the torrent of students walking the opposite way.
Peter laughed and slowed for her to keep up. He related to her statement far more than he should have. He watched as her eyes took in the students and hallway and lockers as if they were completely foreign to her. None of her answers had indicated how she knew Mr. Stark or why he had asked him to look out for her.
They reached the cafeteria, which was slowly filling with people in line to get food, and she looked at him oddly.
"Oh, did you pack a lunch? If you want, you can walk through the line with me or sit with Ned. He's right over there." Peter pointed to an almost empty table where his friend was sitting.
Edie looked at the vast and crowded room, then got in line next to him. Peter smiled despite himself.
"Do you … um, do you like it here?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah, sure. Overall, it's not a bad place to be. Could be worse."
"That is … reassuring."
Peter looked down at her, and the playful smile that tugged at the corner of her lips made him chuckle. "So, I'm guessing you were homeschooled?"
"... yes," she said, after thinking back on the cover story Happy went over in the car that morning. "How did you know?"
"Just your general lostness."
"It is that noticeable? My lostness, as you put it."
"Uh, I mean, yes — but it's no big deal. Really."
Looking only slightly reassured, Edie sat down across from Ned and Peter, her back to the entrance.
"Edie, this is Ned. Ned, this is Edie."
"Hi," said Edie, her timid demeanor coming over her once again.
"Hey," said Ned. He turned to Peter with a look that begged explanation.
"She's new," said Peter.
Edie smiled politely before pulling out a bundle wrapped in white cloth. She unwrapped it to show an apple and a sandwich.
Ned looked at her small lunch. "That's it?"
"Oh, no!" said Edie, seeming alarmed at the thought and blushing deeply. "No, I just, already ate most of the rest of it."
"Don't worry," said Ned, "I always bring a snack for my second hour too."
Peter smiled. Sometimes Ned didn't take to new people very well, but he seemed to be okay with Edie joining them. Edie bit into her sandwich as something caught Peter's eye behind her.
"Did Liz get a new top?" he asked, shamelessly staring at the girl leaning on a ladder as she hung a banner for homecoming.
"No, we've seen that sweater before, just never with that skirt," said Ned.
Edie turned to look too. "Who is coming home?"
"Oh, no, homecoming is a dance," Peter clarified, hiding the laugh in his words.
"Oh. And who is she that hangs the banner?"
"That's Liz. She's, like, super nice and really smart," said Ned. "Peter also has a crush on her."
"Ned!" Peter snapped out of his reverie.
Edie didn't know what a "crush" was, but she got the feeling it had to do with Peter's staring and the redness of his ears.
"That's, uh," he cleared his throat, "not important. … We should probably stop staring before it gets creepy, though."
"Too late," called a voice from down the bench. It belonged to a girl with a permanently serious expression. Her curly hair was pulled back, except for a section of bangs that hung in her eye. "You guys are losers."
Edie couldn't help but giggle at Peter's response to the unwarranted attack. His furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips.
"Well, then why do you sit with us?" asked Ned.
The girl, who had turned back to her book, flipped her head back up to deliver, "'Cause I don't have any friends."
"I don't, I don't know what to say to that," said Ned in a whisper to the other two.
"Me neither," said Peter. "Anyway, so, uh, what class do you have next, Edie?"
"I do not know. The woman that gave me my schedule said I should join a club, but I don't know what clubs there are."
"You could come with me and Peter to Decathlon practice," said Ned. "It's kind of fun and we're going to Washington D.C. next week."
Most of what Ned said Edie didn't understand, but she agreed to go, seeing the hopeful smile on his face.
"Cool!"
At the Decathlon practice, Peter introduced Edie to the teacher, Mr. Harrington, who seemed pleased to have a new addition to the team. He sent Edie over to a girl named Michelle to "figure out what you know and what you don't."
Turns out, Michelle was the same girl from lunch.
"Hello?" said Edie, approaching the front of the stage where the girl sat, hunched over in a book. "I'm Edie. Mr. Harrington told me to have you uh … quiz me, I think." It took Edie a second too long to remember the turn of phrase Harrington had used.
"Okay," said the girl, sitting up straighter and closing her book, all without taking her scrutinizing gaze off of Edie.
"Um, you should know, I know next to nothing about, um, anything, and only came because Ned and Peter told me to," said Edie
Michelle let out a laugh, and one corner of her mouth tugged up. "I like your honesty. I'm gonna ask you a lot of questions, you ready?"
Edie nodded.
"Where are you from?"
"Holland," said Edie, internally thanking Happy for the briefing that morning. "I thought these questions were going to be more trivia than personal?"
"I need to get a sense of who you are before what you know," said Michelle. "What did you do there?"
"My family had an orchard. I was homeschooled."
"What did you grow?"
"Apples."
"Why come to the U.S.?"
"To live with my uncle. It's a long story."
"How much did you learn about growing apples?"
"A lot. I was responsible for caring for the trees."
Happy had told Edie to stick to the truth as much as possible.
"Okay," said Michelle. "You're cool."
Edie smiled widely. "I'm cool?"
"Yeah," said Michelle, giving her a weird side-eye. "You've got a unique story. Everyone else is pretty much the same here. Don't let it go to your head, though. You can only be cool if you don't think of yourself as cool."
Edie smiled and sat next to Michelle on the edge of the stage, watching the rest of the team in a mock event.
"And, you can call me MJ, if you want," added Michelle shortly.
Edie smiled, feeling like the girl wouldn't say that to just anyone.
"You've never even been in the same room as Tony Stark," called the boy sitting farthest away from the rest of the group, essentially cutting off anything else happening in the room.
"Wait, what's happening?" said the girl on the stage.
"Peter's not going to Washington," said a girl on the floor, who had clearly been eavesdropping on the conversation between Peter and Mr. Harrington.
"Oh, no, no, no, no, no," said the girl on stage. "No."
"Why not?" asked Abraham.
Liz spoke up, "Really? Right before nationals?"
"He already quit marching band and robotics lab," said Michelle, all heads turning immediately toward her. She clarified in a low voice, "I'm not obsessed with him, just very observant."
"Flash? You're in for Peter," said Liz.
"Oof, I don't know. I gotta check my calendar first," said the boy who had started the whole thing, not looking up from his quiz book. "I've got a hot date with Black Widow coming up." He arched a cocky eyebrow at Peter.
Abraham dinged the answer bell. "That is false."
"What'd I tell you about using the bell for comedic purposes?" said Mr. Harrington in a flat voice.
"What is happening?" Edie whispered to Michelle, watching as Peter ignored everyone and stared at the time.
Michelle leaned in closer. "Peter got this internship at Stark Industries a few months ago, and ever since then he doesn't have time for anything else."
"Oh," said Edie.
Edie stayed quiet for the rest of the hour, going over the implications of a link between Tony Stark and Peter Parker, and coming up empty.