45"...And please remember to stay with your partners." The stress on the repeated phrase did nothing but annoy Molly Proctor, among others in the sizable group of freshmen from Midtown School of Science and Technology. The faculty leader made her eyes wider to show that she was just as serious as she had been the other three times she mentioned it. But now it was just beginning to lose its meaning. What did it even matter if they stayed with their partners or not? Everyone was going off on their own anyway; they had to complete the science sheet by traipsing through Oscorp's public access floors before the end of the field trip. A glorified scavenger hunt.
Sometimes Molly wished she had chosen to go to Brooklyn Visions for high school. Maybe then she wouldn't have to go on stupid field trips. They were in high school for fuck's sake. There was no reason for field trips anymore. Though, on the flip side, she wasn't going to complain about getting out of classes for a few hours. Made the day roll by a bit faster.
"Hey, partner," Another reason why she wished she chose to go to Brooklyn Visions came to a bouncy stop beside her: Peter Parker. She stifled an eye roll at his hopeful puppy dog features: the dopey smile, floppy brown hair, bright eyes and the casual bounce he was maintaining even though he had come to a stop beside her.
While her immediate reaction was to roll her eyes, she hated how her body betrayed her with a flush of butterflies in her stomach. Why did she have such a crush on someone so stupid? Probably just because he was cute. Fuckin' puberty. Ruining everything.
"Hey." she gave him a tight smile before averting her eyes to anywhere but his face. Or rather, the lame graphic tee he was wearing that had yet another unfunny pun on it. Not unlike most kids in their class - and school, he stood a full head taller than her. She had convinced herself that it was because she was a full year younger than him and the rest of her classmates, thus wasn't at the same developmental stage as her fellow students. But considering how both her older brother and sister were almost six feet tall, the Punnett square was not in her favor.
In an effort not to look at Peter, she let her gaze land on their science teacher, silently shooting death rays at the woman in the tweed skirt. Apparently a trip to Oscorp was the perfect time to shuffle up the lab partners. Randomly assign kids to each other to rip them of their freedom of choice. Not that there was a world where Molly would go out of her way to choose Peter to be her partner - which was the point she guessed. Especially since Peter and his best friend, Ned Leeds, always chose each other for every single partnered project no matter the class. Molly usually begrudgingly took whoever was leftover, making it clear that she was going to do the project on her own. She could do it in less time after all. And it would turn out much better. No one ever cared, letting her do all the heavy lifting and taking the credit when it was finished. Not that it bothered her that much; she'd rather get a better grade than make friends.
"Ready to get started?" There was a squeak of hopefulness to his voice that was already beginning to irritate her, especially when it was paired with the matching, raised eyebrow look. He tightened his backpack straps, fiddling with the loops on the ends of the cords for a moment until he realized it was distracting her. Once he stopped, her eyes shifted up to his face and she raised her eyebrows.
"Yeah, sure, whatever." her answer prompted a bright smile to break out across his features. Seemingly relieved that she was going along with him, he momentarily rolled up onto his tip toes which annoyingly made him even taller, then shot her with his finger guns. She let out a deep sigh through her nostrils, bordering on the acceptance stage of who she had been partnered with: the happy go-lucky kid from Queens who never had a negative thing to say about anyone - even her.
Which was surprising considering there had been plenty of negative things said about her throughout her first semester at Midtown. Some of the stuff she was used to; the jokes about her age were the big ticket items. No one used to care about the fact that she skipped a grade because the kids she had been with had always known. High school was a different story, and a whole new crop of kids. Thanks to some current events that had passed, she had subjected to the ones about her older sister's involvement with taking down the extra-governmental military counter-terrorism and intelligence agency alongside Captain fucking America (who she once brought to a very awkward Thanksgiving). Then there was the usual snide mean girl comments from some of the other girls who just were going through that phase.
Usually, Molly was pretty good about letting them roll off her back. She didn't care about her age difference; she was smart enough to know and prove that she belonged in the class. Generally speaking, Molly's opinion of her sister was low to begin with so comments about how she was a terrorist or whatever didn't sway her opinion any which way; really it was about time everyone else learned how much she sucked. And those mean girls were the same ones buying Adderall from her whenever they needed help getting through an all night cram session meaning she was getting paid from them - their comments didn't matter.
Maybe she didn't have a lot of friends, but that was a personal choice. She didn't have time for friendships when she was striving for perfection. Friendships were a distraction. They took time and attention away from what was important. She couldn't have gotten straight A's her first semester if she had joined band or robotics club. Hell, the only reason she was on the decathlon team was because her across the street neighbor made her join - saying she needed to be involved in something. And also it worked better for carpooling purposes. Even then, she knew she needed to be the best of the best: know every answer, be the first one on the bell, etc. etc. They would be a winning team. They had to be.
Failure was always Molly's worst enemy. She hated it. It made her feel like her older sister. A woman who was already in a supermax prison by the time Molly was born. Someone who her parents had nothing but bad things to say about her. Not someone to look up to, but someone to look down on. She was better than her sister, she knew that, but it was about proving that to everyone else. Sure she skipped class, but that was because she was bored of the material - not to go smoke weed and rob a convenience store with her boyfriend. She was smarter, more in control, just better overall.
Which was why she not only needed to finish the quasi-scavenger hunt, but finish it first.
Annoying scavenger hunt aside, their trip to Oscorp Industries was one of the better field trips the class had taken throughout the year. Of course, it was no Stark Industries, but the company was still interesting. Working in the science field, the company was research based - lending it's hand to anything biochemistry related: cellular and developmental, molecular, virology and immunology, and even genetics. All things that interested Molly, which was one of the reasons she chose to go to Midtown; because of their emphasis on the sciences.
Throughout the building, there were scientists working on various experiments. Some were willing to take a moment to talk to her and Peter about what they were doing, which allowed them to answer a few of the prompts. That was all they needed to do; then they could move on to the next one. Though considering how Peter insisted on continuing the conversation with each scientist or Oscorp they came across - even after they had answered the question, the prompts apparently didn't matter. If it was any other time, Molly would be doing the same thing, but there was a time limit and they needed to move as quickly as possible which meant his constant chatter was getting to be unbearable.
There was only so much she could take. And once she reached her breaking point, instead of lashing out, she instead just quietly snuck away from him. There were still several more questions on the sheet that needed to be answered and instead of focusing, he was chattering away with Dr. Curt Connors, a scientist who apparently worked with his parents before they died. As much as she wanted to stick around for a trip down memory lane - which she really didn't, she also wanted to finish their assignment. She knew she would be able to do it better on her own. Plus it wasn't like she was going to make it so he didn't get any credit; his name was still on the paper. No one would ever know that they had split up.
He would be fine.
Only a few minutes after Molly snuck away - and after his conversation with Dr. Connors finished, did Peter realize she had ditched him. Confused, and a little bit worried, he went in search of her, knowing that they still had a good portion of the sheet to finish. He wasn't exactly sure why she had ditched him, but he figured it wasn't good that she had.
Truth be told, Molly scared him a little. Not only was she just as smart as everyone in their class, she also was a full year younger than them all. Meaning it took her less time to get through the material they had done. Intimidating. That and her personality was another thing that made him a bit afraid of her; she was a bit off-putting. Despite Peter always trying to be nice to her, she always seemed to be frowning or silently judging everyone. A resting bitch face is what his aunt May called it. But Peter didn't think she was a bitch. That was way too harsh. She was just…particular. She wanted things done in a certain way: her way.
It had been a bit nerve-wracking to be assigned as her partner. Especially considering no one ever picked her. Just like how no one picked him for dodgeball in gym class. Mostly because there were rumors that she just took over and did all the work for the project. He figured most of his classmates would jump at the chance to not have to do any work in a group project, but it seemed like that wasn't the case.
Still, the smaller brunette girl had been pretty lenient while they were going through Oscorp. Stood by and waited for him to finish his conversations with the scientists and employees that happened way after they had gotten the answers they were looking for, and even let him decide where to go one of the times. Then she disappeared. Ditched him.
Thankfully, there weren't too many places in the building that were even open to the public. Mostly because of the research that was going on behind the closed doors. It was amazing how much science was happening in one building. If only he had the time to stop and appreciate it all. But no, he had to track down his missing partner before their teacher found out they had split up. That wouldn't be good. He really couldn't afford another detention.
As he hurried through the wing he had last been in with her - half tripping over his untied shoelaces, he tried to keep an eye out for her. She was tiny, which could be both an advantage and disadvantage. Currently it was a disadvantage; she could meld into the crowds of their classmates or other groups of visitors. She had been wearing her usual outfit of an old oversized plaid flannel with a turtleneck underneath that was tucked into a pair of high waisted cuffed jeans. Despite it being well into the new year, she had always dressed like it was still the nineties.
Unlike Brooklyn Visions, Midtown didn't have a dress code: allowing students to express themselves as much as they wanted to. An important part of their mission statement. That and being committed to molding the young minds of tomorrow's future through hands-on learning experiences - like with an interactive field trip to Oscorp.
During his search for his partner, he tried to remember where she had decided they were going next. He remembered that she had plotted the hunt so that it was strategic instead of in order of the questions. That way they would get back to the main lobby as fast as possible.
"Have you guys seen Molly?" he asked while passing by a few of his classmates. No one responded verbally, but a few gave him strange looks. Either they had no idea who Molly was or had no idea who he was - or both.
Getting a bit worried and worked up, he turned down a random corner. While he lightly sped walked down the hall, he looked over his shoulder to make sure she wasn't behind him. Since his eyes weren't on what was happening in front of him, he didn't realize he had walked straight into someone until their collision.
Anywhere else, a run-in like this would be nothing more than a simple bump of bodies. Except at Oscorp, someone was always navigating a cart of supplies, looking over results, transporting materials or holding a container full of samples. Like the woman he had bumped into. The container, and all of its contents, went crashing to the floor. Petri dishes popped out of their nests - smacked against the floor with a loud sound. Some sort of green dye puddled on the floor around the now empty container.
Immediately dropping into a crouch, Peter started to fumble out a rapid apology to the woman in the lab coat. He tried his best to pick up the stuff that was near him, but was really just scrambling to grasp at whatever he could.
"Just leave it please." the woman held up her hand to stop him from making any more of a mess. He paused for a moment, making eye contact with the woman, then looking at what he was holding: two empty, semi broken petri dishes. Awkwardly, he pushed them into the woman's hands and then quickly got to his feet.
"Sorry, again, really sorry." he stuttered out while holding his now empty hands out. Backing away as fast as he could, he tripped over his shoelaces once more before spinning around. His sneakers squeaked against the floors as he hurried away from the woman and the mess he had made.
Deciding it would be better to wait for Molly down in the main lobby, he stepped onto the first elevator he could find. After what happened, there was no reason to keep running around the various wings. If his run-in with the scientist was any indication: he was pretty accident prone.
As the elevator pulled him down, he went to look at his father's watch that he always wore around his wrist. Just to know how much time they had left before the field trip - and scavenger hunt, was over. Only instead of focusing on the watch, his gaze was pulled to the small, black spider that was crawling across the top of his hand.
Acting on instinct - and with a high pitched yelp, he smacked his other hand down on top of the spider that had been making its way across his skin. When he removed his hand, the spider was gone. Heart pounding, he looked down in between his feet to see that the now dead spider had fallen off his hand and onto the elevator floor.
A beat passed before he crouched down over the spider to get a closer look. He let his backpack slide off his shoulders so he could open it to pull out his pencil case. With a pencil, he poked the spider with the tip so that it rolled over onto its back. It didn't look like any of the spiders that co-habitated the bathroom of his aunt May and uncle Ben's apartment. Those were brown and kind of small. This one was bigger and seemed to have more legs than usual but maybe he was just imagining things. There was also an almost green-ish tinge to the spider, something he had missed upon first slap. Definitely not a normal spider.
"Weird." he breathed out, suddenly very interested in the spider that he had killed. Still using his pencil, he scooched the body into the small, handheld pencil sharpener he kept in his pencil case. Just for safekeeping.
What he didn't notice was the small, red welt that was beginning to blossom on the top of his hand.
A/N: Me? Starting a new story? IT'S TRUE! And it's HAPPENING! I hope you're all ready to join me on this new adventure that will 100% tie in with REALITY IN MOTION later down the line. Let me know your thoughts and theories! Love you all v much!
