The Starting Line

Connor frowned the conversation with Abel had obviously not helped Peter at all. He had heard the conversation, but was unable to do anything to soothe his teammate's nerves. He was too far away for a human to have heard it, so he couldn't do anything to help without risking dropping a hint about his super hearing. In other words, he was stuck.

"You guys ready?" Clark asked them as he came up to them. The teams had assembled in the middle of the camping field and were being assigned numbers. There were several teams, all of which looked like they really wanted to win. Most were athletic.

"I'm ready," Megan said excitedly.

Connor shrugged noncommittally. "Sure, I guess."

"As ready as I'll ever be," was Peter's reply.

"Kent team, come get your number!" someone called from the organization table.

"I'll go get," Peter volunteered, and trotted off.

"Is something wrong?" Clark asked.

"I don't know," Megan said turning to Connor.

"Just give Peter the biggest head start we can on his leg of the race and everything should be fine," Connor said.

Abel was right, I'm not winning material, Peter thought as he surveyed the competition while getting his teams numbers. Every one of the other teams looked like they competed during the school year in some kind of sport, even the junior teams looked like they played some kind of sport.

"I here to pick up the Kent teams numbers," he said to one of the organizers.

"Here it is. Hmm, you're lucky. You get number seven this year, and seven's a lucky number," she replied, handing him slips of paper and some safety pins.

"I hope so, we're gonna need it," he muttered as he headed back.

The other teams seemed cheerful as he meandered back to his. Some were doing warm up stretches, while other talked with their relations and team members. The Kent family was rather large and Peter wished that he'd been to one of their reunions before; he'd probably have had someone to talk with besides his teammates and a few of the adults.

"Do you know what's wrong with Peter?" Clark asked as the other boy went to fetch their number.

Connor nodded, but he didn't want to say anything out loud. "Megan, can you link us up for a minute?"

His girlfriend nodded, and her eyes glowed slightly as she telepathically linked the three teammates.

"So what's wrong with Peter?" Clark repeated after taking a moment to get used to the telepathic link.

"Abel talked to Peter during the warm run, he said that Peter wasn't winning material," Connor summarized.

"That's rude, and very mean," Megan said, taking offense. "Do you think that Peter believed him?"

Connor merely shrugged and looked to Clark. He wasn't in full understanding of social cues yet, but Clark was. Clark would probably know if Peter believed the Holt boy or not.

"It's hard to say, I don't know the Parker's all that well," replied the reporter thoughtfully. "From what Ma described of Peter I think that he may have believed them, but he might also be dealing with some emotional baggage right now as well."

"What does that mean?" Connor didn't understand the colloquialism that Clark had used.

"The Parker's experienced a tragic loss a little less than a year ago, and Ma tells me that May said that Peter has been really distant because of it," Clark supplied. "That's why I suggested we form a team; I thought it might help him."

"Oh, so is there anything we should do?" Megan asked. Obviously she understood what Clark meant, but Connor was still a little confused. Though if Megan thought that they should help Peter in some way, then he didn't see why he shouldn't too.

"Just be his friend, and giving him a good head start wouldn't be such a bad idea either," Clark responded as Peter found his way back with the number tags.

"Alright everyone, welcome to the Family Games," announced the head organizer. "I'm Terry, and I'll be announcing each event. Right now, we're gonna start the relay race."

Finally, we can get this other with, Peter thought eagerly. He'd been standing around with his team for at least fifteen minutes, and had been filling that time with a Spider-Man conversation with Megan and Connor.

"I think we all know how this works, but for any new comers, I'm gonna explain what's gonna happen," Terry continued. "Each of the runners will run their section of the race around the field. The first section is from the Hancock's camper to where the fence ends, the next section is from there to the Madison's tent, from the Madison's tent to where the fence begins again, and the last leg is from there to back to the Hancock's camper."

"So we're pretty much running one right angle of a rectangle?" Peter whispered to Clark.

He nodded. "Shush, listen."

"Okay, the rules are simple: no cheating, the baton has to cross the finish line in the hands of the runner to count, and have as much fun as possible," enthusiastically finished Terry. "So teams get to your starting lines and prepare to run for first."

"Sounds simple enough," Connor said with a shrug as the congregated teams disbanded to go to their starting lines. "We could win this."

"You mean we are going to win this," Megan corrected.

"I hope we do," Peter responded with some enthusiasm that hadn't been in his tone a few minutes ago. "Good luck, Megan, you're running first."

"Even more luck to you, Peter, you're running last," she replied happily as she headed to her starting point. "See you two at the finish line!"

"Ah … good luck," Connor said as he headed for his leg of the race.

Peter headed to the last part of the race. He hoped that he could win.

No, I know I can win! he thought as he put his mind in a gear that it usually took up when he was Spider-Man. I'm Spider-Man for crying out loud. I fight creeps like Doc Ock and Green Goblin on a regular basis; I should be able to help win a simple relay race.

A whistle blew on the other side of the field signaling that the race had begun.

Okay, so this chapter is a little sooner than even I expected. So what do you guys think? Everything going well? Anyone feel suspence.

Thank you everyone for reading this, this is one of the most popular stories I've written. I've got over fifty people paying attention to this and I'm only at chapter seven, guys that's awesome, because I've got a lot in store and this is only the beginning.

I don't own Young Justice or Spider-Man.

~Rayner out