Extracurricular Activities [Spider-Man -- Sigr & Virginia]

Virginia Greene · Sep 16, 2017

Savannah Smith was struggling. She'd put on the ugly shirt the couple who'd adopted her seemed to think was so cute, even kept her black faux-leather jacket tied around her waist until after they'd left. Like she needed to be walked to school. Admittedly there were things to be said to the principal, but she could have done it herself. This... worked, though. Awkward, shy. mourning new girl was a role she could play. It wasn't like her adoptive family wasn't nice, they were wonderful people. She remembered them vaguely, and having lived with them for a week, she understood why her mother had been such close friends with them. They gave her free reign to decorate her room, and a nice budget to pick out the kind of furniture and paint she wanted in it. They'd helped her set everything up, and complimented all her choices. She'd played along based on the things she knew they liked, and then done much the same when it came time to get new clothes. It meant a lot of her new wardrobe was things that two 'slightly out of touch but generally not fashion failure' sorts of people thought was reasonable, and she was just going to have to fix it with things that she bought on her own and had brought with her. Wasn't going to make her the sexiest and best dressed in school, but she looked normal if perhaps a little bit out of touch. Or just confident in her own choices and style, she supposed. Either way she figured people would know by the end of the day that her family life was abnormal, teachers talked and that meant that students heard.

But hey, it was a nerd school. Nobody was going to give worse than she could take.

In gym, she had to resist the urge to just take out one of the people on the other side in dodgeball; her dad had always said that if you weren't going 100%, you might as well not even bother. Then again he'd also heavily encouraged blending in, she'd just never had to do it quite like this. So it was a class of awkward fumbling the ball and feeling the stress and irritation build, letting her curls fly into her hair and generally just trying to perform at the level that these... nerds did. Not that athletic nerds weren't a thing, but the one who had been getting on her nerves? No. No, she'd probably have crushed him. And then he'd have whined and the satisfaction would have been entirely ruined.

During art she sat in the back and just kept to herself, smiling at anyone who looked in her direction and just generally trying to come off as pleasant but distracted. It had been working so far, and things seemed to be going as well as could be expected until someone to her left piped up with a "you're good at that." Savannah looked down at her sketchbook and then up at the darker skinned teen who'd spoken, expression friendly but confused. "Excuse me?"
"Pretending you care. You're good at it." For a minute, Savannah thought the mask was going to crack. Who the hell was this that she could just pick up on the fact that the blonde had absolutely no interest in any of this? For a moment she was anxious, but brushed it off and recovered. "I heard that 'fake it till you make it' was an actual thing, so I'm giving it my best shot." That seemed to be a good enough answer, though she suspected, after spending the rest of the hour and a half carefully observing the darker skinned artist, that Michelle (as she'd picked up when the teacher spoke to her) actually didn't care and just liked to make observations. Perhaps specifically, she liked to make people uncomfortable, but it was hard to tell.

At lunch Savannah considered sitting alone, but that seemed impractical. It would end in someone coming to talk to her, at least that was her fear. Instead she headed towards a mostly empty table that was populated by a skinny looking teen, his... maybe Filipino friend (and they were definitely friends given how close they were sitting) and that gal from art class who Savannah knew she had to keep an eye on. "Room for another, or is the table too full?" It very obviously not, and the wild haired new girl dropped down onto the bench attached to the white lunch table, tray settling with a clatter, picking a spot closer to the other girl than the two guys. She investigated the food on the tray with a little more curiosity than she probably should have, and then decided that yeah, it was probably edible. She'd been home schooled (if one could call it that) for years, and school food had been a distant elementary school memory until she'd gotten into the cafeteria and realized it was reality again. Delightful.

Sigr · Sep 16, 2017

Going back to school was a bummer. How things ended between Peter Parker and Tony Stark were fine, hell, more than fine. From his point of view he had finally ended up earning his respect, and even Happy's or so he thought, but all things sweet about his supposed victory came to a halt back in school. Liz's absence was so big that couldn't be easily ignored, not by him nor most of the students there. Unless some other wallflowers like him that would only be missed by a handful of people, Liz was popular and connected, sometimes her leave feeling like she was dead instead of just moved away. Peter couldn't help but feel responsible for that, as he was the one that couldn't just look away, couldn't just have the homecoming dance they wanted and had left Liz alone to put her father into jail.

To make matters more complicated Aunt May had figured out that he was Spider-Man due to a stupid mistake. Well, not much figuring to do when she had caught him red handed because he had grown careless. He had expected to be grounded until the end of time, but it didn't quite go as expected. May was proud of him, of how he helped people around like he was some sort of policeman or firefighter even if he was neither, but of course she was also worried. She trusted the Peter she had raised well, but as a teenager he was bound to make stupid mistakes, so she let him keep doing what he did, just to be extra careful with it. Maybe she guessed, and guessed correctly, that she wouldn't be able to make him stop, so it was better if she was supportive and didn't push away the only family they had left.

So now he had more free reign from Stark, but his own aunt looking over his shoulder. Great. Liz's absence aside, returning to the classes was a welcome return to a normalcy of sorts, if teaming up with Ned to find out people to help when they had free time could be considered normal. Normal classes, normal students, perfectly normal school food, right? Well, not entirely. Since the Washington Monument rescue, Spider-Man was more and more present in the minds of the school students, something that wasn't convenient if people started to investigate. People like Michelle, for example. Peter didn't know what was the deal with her, but she was smart, probably smarter than he was, and if he kept acting carelessly she was going to end up discovering his secret, sooner or later.

Maybe she didn't care, or that was on what Peter was banking as he looked at her during lunch while Ned talked about turning the Lego Death Star into a flying drone for reasons unspecified. Suddenly a flash of blonde hair and a bright voice called for his attention, averting his eyes from Michelle to the newcomer. "Well no, of course not, sit down" Peter said, trying to be welcoming before Michelle said something rude or Ned rambled about something and scared the poor girl. She seemed strangely out of place, that feel all new students had, but at the same time like it belonged there, not only in that school but in that table. Perhaps it was the odd choice of clothes, who knew.

"I'm Peter and these are Ned and Michelle" he said, looking curiously at how the girl poked at the food. "We don't bite, and I'd swear the food doesn't either" he said with a smile, even if in Michelle's case he wasn't entirely sure how would she react to the newcomer.

"Hi! I'm Ned" he said, reintroducing himself for no reason. Perhaps he wanted to avoid that the new girl thought he was named Michelle? Peter shook his head slightly. "Do you like Star Wars?" he asked. There we go, Peter thought.

Virginia Greene · Sep 17, 2017

They were welcoming. That was good for her, but also a little bit of a bother because it meant they'd probably want to interact with her. It was how friendship worked, but still, a bother. "Savannah. Nice to meet you. I already know I like Michelle."
"I make you uncomfortable," Michelle corrected without looking up from her sketchbook, and Savannah smiled. "Well yeah, but I like that."
"Weird." It was weird. But it was going to be better to keep her close and figure her out than it was to just let Michelle be weirdly observant and not keep an eye on her. Adjusting a sleeve of the black jacket hiding the bright shirt underneath, she just shrugged. It was far weirder than Michelle had any way of knowing, and would ever know. Savannah's secret was going to her grave. Well no, it'd come out when she was dead, that was how it had been with her father. Couldn't hide what you were doing when you were dead. Maybe if she was giving up the life she'd had before, but she didn't think she could. It had been her everything, she wasn't sure she knew how not to put on the clothes and go out. She'd only been here for a week, and she was already about ready to crawl out of her skin. She felt cooped up, trapped like a wild animal in a zoo. She needed to hunt.

Prodding her mac'n cheese, she scooped it up with her fork and took a hesitant bite. "well, it's food," was her thoughtful judgment after a few seconds of deliberation. "I was home-schooled for a really long time, I haven't been in a school since.... I dunno, nine? I don't really remember. So this is new." That should explain away all behavior they might deem unusual. From take smiles to food suspicious, 'home-schooled' pretty much covered it. It covered any antisocial behaviors, curious clothing, and anything where she didn't know what was being talked about in pop culture or even in class. Savannah had done her homework. She knew what her dad had said and what she remembered from elementary school, and 'home schooled' basically equaled quirky and weird as far as people were concerned.

She'd never seen Star Wars. But she knew about it, it was so soaked into popular culture that it was impossible to avoid and admitting that she hadn't seen Star Wars would probably be kind of weird. So instead she went with "yeah. I mean there's a whole bunch of stuff I don't know about, but it's cool." There was no way most people kept up with all of the Star Wars stuff, so it was a safe response, Savannah figured. "I come from an action movie family. Alien horror was big for a few years." After The Incident the rare occasion that they got to watch anything. She liked horror, she supposed. If she really had to sit and think about what kind of movie she'd want to watch if she had to watch something. Wasn't a big movie person, though.

Honestly, there were a lot of things Savannah might have to think about to decide she liked, especially when it came to pop culture and basically anything that wasn't knives or food. These were things that she'd have to figure out, or at least pick out so that she had something to say, that sort of thing was important to the identity of the average teenager. While things were probably a little bit different here, teens were teens. Interacting with her peers hadn't been something she'd been trained to do. Interacting with adults was most of what had been focused on, making herself seem normal and innocent. How to get information, how to slip away, how to get people to do what she wanted them to do.

That, at least, was still an applicable talent. Probably especially with these guys. Michelle was a concerning gatekeeper to 'friends she didn't really have to be exceptionally close to' goal, but trying to hide from her would have been more suspicious. Peter was... cute, at least. If she was going to associate herself with a group it might as well be one with someone who was easy on the eyes.

Sigr · Sep 17, 2017

"Home schooled" Peter echoed, nodding as he was knowledgeable of what it implied. Well, everybody knew what it meant, but the specifics of it were another thing entirely. Maybe her parents had money and she had private tutors, or perhaps they were teachers and was taught by themselves. "That must be interesting... maybe a bit lonely" he added. Peter thanked all and any gods for the gift of Michelle being silent and not making any dry jokes about that for once, even Thor if he had to, although not having met him it was hard to know if he really listened to prayers. The last thing their group of misfits needed was to scare people off.

"She likes Star Wars..." Ned appreciated, even if Savannah's answer was lukewarm at best. Peter could almost see how the gears turned inside Ned's head while he thought of how introduce her to that 'whole bunch of stuff she didn't know'. There would be a threat of a Star Wars Rebels marathon sometime, he could feel it, or perhaps even Clone Wars if Ned felt specially inclined to. "Alien horror? Peter here doesn't handle well those thrills" Ned added out of the blue. "He's a scaredy cat" insisted, turning to him almost as if he wanted to wink him an eye.

"No I'm not-" Peter protested, frowning at Ned wondering where had that come from for a few seconds. Oh, no. Now he understood. Ned had been badgering him with some sort of convoluted plan to make him appear as nothing like a brave super hero, to fend suspicious people like Michelle off, and that had to be his heavy handed approach to the issue. "I like horror, on occasion" he weakly added, even if the genre itself did nothing much for him in one direction or the other. Peter knew that if Savannah really believed Ned, anything that he added would only further suspicions about him wanting to protect his male pride in front of a new cute girl, so he dropped the issue.

Wait. Was she cute? The garish clothing gave her a bit of an otherworldly feel, but that was probably due to spending her youth home schooled, but besides that... yeah, she was cute. The hair was a bit too much, but somehow she made it work and it looked nice and bouncy. But she was nothing like Liz, was she? Slightly shaking his head, Peter dismissed the thought of his... friend? Did she even count as an ex when they didn't even had a real date?

"We have an Academic Decathlon Team thing after the classes" Peter said, hoping that he hadn't stared for too long in silence. "Maybe you could check it out if you like" he offered, as more people were always welcome and all of the people of the table were on the team. Hoping that Michelle didn't shot the plan in the knee in her odd fitting role as team captain, Peter awaited for an answer while Ned looked proud of his ham-fisted approach to the secret identity issue. "The people on the team are nice... mostly" he said, not wanting to expose Savannah to Flash Freaking Thompson.

Virginia Greene · Sep 19, 2017

....Lonely? Savannah considered for a moment, and realized that she'd never really thought about it. She'd been so busy with her dad and training that she'd never had time to be lonely or miss out on interacting with her peers. "A little bit. Didn't really realize what I was missing until I was here. At least my previous teacher knew my name." Because it a parent was the obvious insinuation there. "The art teacher called her Georgia," Michelle supplied helpfully. It had at least been up the same vein, using the state the city she shared a name with was in, but that didn't mean Savannah had given points for partial credit. No, it had been incredibly annoying. She shot Michelle a glance and then pressed her lips in a thin line before smiling, trying her best to properly capture an 'oh well what can you do?' sort of expression.

This was one of probably many situations where Savannah would go with what seemed like it should be the right answer in order to keep from getting any kind of suspicion from her peers. She'd look things up later if she felt like she had to, or just be quiet and make it seem like she was happy to just listen to whoever wanted to talk to her about whatever pointless piece of media they were excited about. Green eyes darted between Ned and Peter, expression slightly amused. "Jump scares are carefully manufactured to get a reaction from people," she offered up. "So just the act of being startled doesn't necessarily mean someone's afraid." She was rarely startled. Her father hadn't liked it when things startled her, and pretty much nothing made her jump anymore.

The response that bubbled up in her throat was 'no'. But it wasn't like she had any kind of after school activities until the sun went down. she couldn't be caught running around by the cops. She wasn't a hero, and she didn't do things like they did. That restricted things to night time. "Sure. Sounds interesting." Savannah had no idea what that was, but she'd been invited to an event and it would probably make Ellen and Troy -- her hosts, as she was calling them -- happy and think less of it when she wanted to go out. If it involved trivia and science facts or something, she'd probably not be participating, but at least checking it out wasn't going to hurt. "Where does it meet?" She dug into her bag to pull out her printed schedule, and then spent a few seconds finding a pencil so she could write down where it was. "I'll have to call my family and get permission." She didn't want to lie and call them parents because that'd get busted pretty quick and while 'family' wasn't the right word at all it was the one that had the least amount of room for people to dig into.

The paper wasn't out very long, Savannah was sort of hoping that neither of the guys had a class with her. If they did and she didn't know ahead of time she could sit somewhere else and pretend she hadn't realized they were there, but if they knew they shared a class ahead of time she'd have to be prepared to interact. Class was time when she didn't have to try and communicate with people. Class was easy. Respond to someone in a position of authority and be exactly who she needed to be not to get too much attention.

"According to my vast research into the average high school there's always someone who's not nice, but they'll eventually either learn a lesson or get put in their place." She paused and then completed the joke with "I watched a bunch of 80s high school movies." She'd watched two with her hosts because they'd wanted to do some calm sort of activity and they just had a bunch of DVDs of things from the 80s. She'd sat on the couch with them, smiled at the funny bits and looked concerned or unhappy at the bits that required those emotions, but her mind had been miles away.

She opened her chocolate milk, which she'd grabbed because she noticed more people took it than normal milk, and took a sip. Oh. For a moment, her heart twisted. It tasted weird, but it brought back a memory she hadn't had in a long time, of a smiling man spooning Nesquik powder into a cocktail shaker, shaking it and then splitting it between three glasses. After a moment Savannah blinked and took another sip before setting the little carton down. There was no time or reason to mourn. His death was his own fault, he'd made mistakes and people who made mistakes got caught and had to deal with the consequences. But now she was dealing with consequences, and she had done everything exactly like she was supposed to.

((eventually she'll watch Star Wars with Peter and actually pay some attention to it. also lmao I guess I just ended up having both my characters triggering moments of memory in my latest posts.))

Sigr · Sep 19, 2017

With Ned busy eating and planning some kind of Star Wars marathon schedule thing that nobody had time for and Michelle being mostly terrifyingly silent, Peter could chat with Savannah in peace. If Michelle didn't talk it meant that she was watching, and it was hard not to think how keen she was, so he felt like he would have to dance around certain subjects while talking in front of her. Hoping that he wouldn't look too awkward thinking about things twice before talking, Peter couldn't help but nod and smile once Savannah accepted the invite to the club. "We meet on the drama room, there is no missing us with the yellow jackets and all that" he joked. Being the one explaining those things to her while the actual team captain judged his every word was somewhat nerve wracking. Perhaps he was just being paranoid and Michelle wasn't paying any attention, but since May had caught him, Peter had promised to be more careful than ever.

"Damn, I forgot to tell my aunt about the meeting" Peter realized, and the last thing he wanted to do was worrying her and causing her to think that he was Spider-Manning around the city, although she was probably busy until dinner. "Remind me later, Ned" Peter asked him, not wanting to forget giving May a heads up if able. "Should we start with Clone Wars 2003 or Clone Wars 2008... yeah, yeah..." was all Ned mumbled as an answer, so it would have to suffice. Despite the awkwardness of the first day, Peter noticed that Savannah could be funny when she joked about bullies and 80s' movies. Her smile seemed a bit nervous, but he couldn't help but laugh at the joke, something that he hoped would help ease her out.

Maybe she could be part of the Decathlon team? Peter thought that someone else with a different viewpoint and perhaps specialization could come in handy, but it was a mostly entertaining activity. After all, she had to be quite smart to be there, it only remained to be seen what kind of things she was keen on. Seeing that the conversation had kind of died and Savannah looked pensive, perhaps even a little bit sad, Peter nervously broke the silence. "Oh man, I have math next class" he whined, "I hate math" added, sounding totally and completely fake. "What are you talking about? You like math" Ned said. Fantastic, the only time he stopped his Star Wars planning was to pitch on in that moment, of all times.

"Okay, yeah..." Peter admitted weakly. "But I hate liking math" he came with sort of an argument that showed why he wasn't on the debate club. "You hate liking math?" Ned questioned, unaware of where the topic was going. "I mean, who likes math? I wish I could unlike math" he said, trapped on his own argument. "Maybe with the proper conditioning..." Ned considered, although there was nothing like The Force to convince someone. "Electrodes?" Peter wondered out loud. "Or hypnosis" Ned continued, now fully into that weird awkward joke. Peter stopped before they made Michelle groan and berate them, although perhaps it was too late.

"I got art though" Ned commented, further killing the tempo. "Time to express all the things I have inside me" he added, trying to sound interesting and failing miserably as he finished his meal. "What do you have next? This place can be a bit big and daunting" Peter asked Savannah, trying to be of help.

(Curious coincidence and perfectly fine. Ned's and Peter's stupid and awkward dialogues are fun to write)

Virginia Greene · Sep 23, 2017

"You guys have jackets?" She asked without really thinking about it. "Is this what happens here instead of sports?" Savannah couldn't really imagine much in the way of sports happening with this lot. Football was the favorite right? And that involved concussions. Those probably didn't go over super well for this type of folk. They weren't that bad though, you could walk 'em off. Push through the fog and the dizziness, through the ringing of the ears and the nausea. Probably wouldn't be great for her in sixty or seventy years, but hey, that wasn't the 'right now Savannah's problem. 'Right now' Savannah was good at what she did and could handle all sorts of things. She knew how her body worked, and how to work it through all sorts of issues. Because when she was out fighting, there were no breaks. There was nobody who was going to come to save her, she had to save herself.

She was the only person she could count on in the world.

Why had he said that he didn't like math if he did? Didn't make sense to her. Was he lying for a reason? It had to be a reason related to her because his friends knew him better. Give her and Peter something to talk about. Of course, that made sense. Teens and social interaction, he was trying to make her feel at ease perhaps. It would have worked better if he was a decent liar or hadn't been immediately busted by his friends, but a bad liar was a good person to pull in as a friend. Meant they were less likely to pick up on her own lies. "Math's pretty low on the list of things it's bad to like. Could be worse. Could be--" she was going to say 'throwing babies off of roofs', but that would probably not go over well with this group, so she adjusted mid sentence to "-the Star Wars... prequels...?" People hated those, right? She was pretty sure. Her dad hadn't liked them. It had come up in passing once. "If you had a really negative experience with math it could probably change your opinion on math. That sort of thing happens. Like if the math books all exploded or something." Or if someone died there, but that was another thing not to say out loud.

Aw shit. Fine. "Math. Room 208." There had to be more than one math class, and hopefully he wouldn't be in the same one. And her science class after that at least had to be void of... friendly nerds. She just wanted to be left alone for a while so she could get it together and then go be friendly for the Academic Decathlon, whatever that was. "And yeah, it is a little big. But I'm pretty good at navigation." That was rude. So she followed it up with "if you show me today, I'll probably remember next time." And then she could show up later to have excuses not to sit next to him. Think of things she needed to do between the end of lunch and the beginning of math.

She thought something rude at Ned's word about art, but didn't say anything out loud. "I had art with Michelle. Maybe we'll have a science or something together. Then I'll be three for three!" Christ, she hoped not. The pretty blonde still smiled at the teen as sweetly as she could manage, because that was what this version of her would do. This friendly, nonthreatening, slightly quirky version of her. Be friendly, encourage everyone spending time together as long as it was class hours. She'd think of something after class hours. Maybe she'd say she had therapy. Spill the dead dad story. Or maybe piano lessons. Then she might have to take that back up again in case they got weird about it. Savannah immediately assumed that if she mentioned a skill it would get questioned at some point. That's what she'd do.

Her food went mostly untouched. A few bites of mac'n cheese, a couple sips of chocolate milk, but all of the steamed broccoli at least. She didn't like to eat around people. Just enough it wasn't weird and she wouldn't feel hungry until she got home, Savannah figured. Eating food around strangers without someone she trusted made her feel uncomfortable, and she just... wasn't in the mood to deal with that.

((your Peter and Ned are super cute))

Sigr · Sep 26, 2017

"We do, but we also have sports here" Ned pointed out. "Wait, does debate count?" he asked, looking around. "I don't think so, but that would be up to debate" Peter couldn't help but joke. "Perhaps chess?" he added. "If debate doesn't count... I'd say that chess doesn't either" Ned discussed. "So..." he doubted. "Well, there is the fencing team" Peter contributed. "The fencing club?" Ned arched an eyebrow. "Well, yeah... they aren't exactly a team as they don't tend to go to competitions... but they aren't bad" Peter assured. "How would you know if they don't compete?" Ned asked, more curious than malicious. "I just hear things" Peter settled with a shrug, being more mysterious than he had any right to be.

"Not the same teacher then, I'm one floor above in 308" Peter commented, slightly bummed of not having Math with Savannah. At least he could show her the way around. "Maybe..." Peter mumbled, seeing Savannah be cheery one moment and be pensive looking at her food without touching it another. She sure wasn't having an easy time, he figured that nobody would have when going to a new school, specially when home schooled, but Peter didn't know what to do to help. She was open to do Star Wars jokes and talk about exploding math books, so she seemed to be trying to fit, perhaps too hard?

Or maybe she was trying to hit on him.

Nononono. Peter blinked a few times in a row, getting slightly blushed for a fleeting moment. That wasn't a thing, that couldn't be a thing. It was true that being with Liz, even if it was the shortest amount of time possible, made him feel a bit more confident on his... dateability? Dattitude? It sounded stupid and horrible, date potential, so to speak. But that couldn't be it, there was just no way as they had just met, he was just being silly after Liz was gone away for his fault. Perhaps dazzled with those amazing blonde curls or maybe just the novelty. No, there was something else, she was nice beyond her looks, or so did Peter thought, but noticing the staring he soon returned to his food.

"So one hour of Math, Art and whatever Michelle has..." Ned commented, saving them from the awkward silence. "Then an hour of free study, then it's yellow jacket time, right captain?" he added, wanting to include Michelle in the conversation, even if by then Ned had to know better than to poke the bear.

(Thank you! It's a bit hard to return to form after an awful weekend, but I'm on it. Loving our games.)

Virginia Greene · Oct 1, 2017

They were even less sporty than she thought. But there was a football field, so they must have had a team. It'd make sense if these guys didn't pay enough attention to know what was going on with it, though. "Fencing seems neat." She probably shouldn't do it, though. She'd either stand out or have to fake being average, and while that was going to be her life for at least until the end of the year, Savannah just didn't like the idea of it. She should join something. The decathalon, maybe fencing. Maybe she'd become a cheerleader. While she was entirely flexible, balanced, and precise enough for it, the idea was laughable. Fencing didn't have competitions, which meant more control over her schedule. So it was gonna be that or the... decathlon. Whatever that was. She knew what it meant for sports, so it was probably that, but instead of physical strength it was tests of the mind. That would make these guys the smartest of the smart then, right? That was useful to know.

Peter looked disappointed about the schedules, so she tried to reassure him with a casual "there's different classes tomorrow, so there's the chance." If she looked past her disdain for the school and social interactions as a whole, Savannah could see that it was probably a good thing to have people she knew in her classes. They'd know the material and the teacher, and be able to provide her with a lot of general information. Even if it would make her life easier and she could almost certainly get away with it Savannah wasn't much for cheating, no matter how useless she thought the whole school thing was. Cheating to overcome would ensure her success, but it wasn't what tests were for. It'd be very different kinds of tests than she was used to, but giving it anything less than her best would have made her father ashamed of her.

Ned's comment got an answer of "Michelle has biology." She spoke in third person tonelessly, looked up from her book and seemingly ready to engage. "I might be late to decathalon though, I'll be in detention." She didn't have it, but she liked to swing by and see what was up. If there was someone there worth paying attention to, she'd be later. If a team required their captain in order to do literally anything, they were sort of a failure, she reasoned, so the decathlon team could train without her for fifteen or twenty minutes. "You don't seem like a detention sort," Savannah noted, and Michelle just smiled a little enigmatically, addressing Ned and Peter instead. "You can handle a few minutes alone, right?" Her tone was so emotionless that it was hard to tell if she thought they could or not. They wouldn't even be alone, they'd be with the entire team and Savannah, who Michelle was very sure had a whole lot going on below the surface. She just didn't care that much. People all got to have their own secrets and whatever.

Free anything seemed counter-intuitive to the point of slamming all the kids down in desks and making them all read the same thing at the same time. It would be good though, Savannah could get all her work done and have more time for sleep and nightly activities. "Yeah, it's weird."
"W-huh?" She looked shocked, honestly, for a second before she could could compose herself. "What's weird?"
"Study hall." What. The. Hell. Savannah looked back up at Peter and Ned and mouthed what looked like 'is she an alien?' and Michelle answered before they could with a lazy "no. You looked perplexed when Ned brought it up."

((Lemme know if you feel like I'm going in the wrong direction with Michelle, we got so little of her I'm just running her in the direction of incredibly perceptive with a dry sense of humor and an appreciation for messing with people

feel free to have the bell ring, send them to class, skip to decathlon time, whatever you want.
I can google decathalonesque questions or we can just say "answered the question".))

Sigr · Oct 1, 2017

Peter couldn't help but to nervously smile when Michelle's acute intuition surprised Savannah. "And that's why even if we can handle by ourselves, Michelle is our captain" Peter commented. Seeing the new girl disturbed by Michelle's acumen wasn't pleasant, but she should get accustomed soon enough, although he also felt bad about a small feeling of relief. After all, as long as Michelle was focused on Savannah she wouldn't peek into Peter's secret. That idea made him wonder how Michelle or even Savannah would react if they know. After aunt May's unexpected reaction, Peter didn't dare to imagine what any of them would do if they knew, specially Savannah since they had just met.

With class time approaching and the lunch as finished as it could be, the group split apart in the way of their respective duties. As they said, Peter showed Savannah the way to the class, but as they were left alone without Michelle's unnerving presence or Ned's verbosity, their conversation turned into awkward small talk peppered with short silences. The classes served to distract Peter of the odd encounter and set his mind away from Savannah's refreshing presence and Michelle's uncomfortable perception. Classes were just classes and not specially difficult for Peter, but as the time to go with the club approached and the pressure was lighter during the free time, Peter's mind returned to wonder about Savannah.

Peter and the rest of the club without Michelle were doing some practices, pulling questions from the smartphones to test their knowledge, nothing too strict nor structured, as not only they didn't have Liz's gentle leadership nor teacher's Harrington guiding presence. It was amusing and entertaining, not to mention that Flash wasn't being much of an asshole as of late, something that made Peter wonder if something had happened. Peter's hopes of him being more civil and less of an idiot didn't last long, as he soon behave stupidly once more.

"Who's goldilocks over there? Does anyone see the three bears?" Flash asked, nodding to Savannah as she reached the gym where they were reunited.

"Her name is Savannah and she's new" Ned said a bit grumpy about the reference, but accustomed to Flash's behavior.

"I knew that you were behind on English, Flash, but not so much as to get tasked with reading children's books" Peter lashed back at Flash, leaving him mute and approaching Savannah to bridge the distance between her and the group. If the decathlon team was surprised, Peter was the first one to be caught unaware by his own reaction. Was it that he was just tired of Flash's verbal abuse or was it because it was directed to Savannah?

(Some people are stricter with canon than others, so each one has their limits. Personally I'd say that you are doing a marvelous job considering the extent of the material we have. In any case, it's more important that we feel right about the portrayal than it being specially faithful, so yeah I'm more than happy with it.)

Virginia Greene · Oct 11, 2017

"So she can spook everyone on the other teams into messing up?" The idea seemed to please Michelle, or at least amuse her. Savannah was content with that, and didn't really feel the need to add more to any conversation, and when everyone got up to carry their trays she trailed after. She followed after Peter when he guided her to her classroom, and touched his arm briefly when she thanked him because contact made people think you trusted and liked them. Class after that was fine. She kept to herself, answered questions only when asked specifically, and generally tried not to draw any sort of attention. When school was over, she texted Ellen to get permission to stay after and check out this whole decathlon thing. The older woman sent back an enthusiastic text - at least Savannah assumed it was enthusiastic because it contained several emoji and gave her permission to stay out as late as she wanted.

She slipped in a few minutes after everyone else showed up, standing sort of awkwardly away from the group until someone spoke. Was that supposed to be a jab? Was he trying to make fun of her? Savannah looked a tiny bit perplexed and opened her mouth, ready to say something when Peter stepped in, pretty literally. He crossed the distance between the group and her and responded to the guy who'd teased her. It all seemed very childish, but this was teen development she supposed. She moved a little bit behind the taller, lanky teen, silently trying to encourage the protectiveness. Let him deal with anything that came up.

"I suppose the ability to memorize facts doesn't necessarily imply intelligence," she said in what was basically a stage whisper, something to pretend she was trying to speak only to one person but definitely meant to be something that Flash would be able to hear. "I probably won't be much use for this," she turned to Peter, "because what I said was true. Real smart, at least I think so, but not so much time learning advanced trivia." That was basically what this was, right? That's what it had seemed like from a quick googling. But she'd stick around anyway because she'd been invited and because it would at least give her an idea of that the people she was hanging out with now were into.

Michelle managed to slip in without about half the group noticing her. Savannah did, and enjoyed the way a few people jumped when they heard "alright nerds, let's get this party started." People started organizing themselves, taking the spots that they needed to be in so that practice could officially start.

Savannah started to drift towards Michelle, and then changed her mind and moved back towards Peter. He and Ned had invited her, and it would make sense for her to at least feign some kind of interest in participating until she could prove she wasn't going to be cut out for the.... club. Was it a club? It wasn't a sport. Academic competition, that was the name for it. Michelle had some flashcards in a handwriting that was definitely nicer than her own, which meant that someone had written them for her or she was using older ones. It wasn't that far into the school year, they could probably be using trivia from the past year too. But she was just guessing, she really had no idea how an academic decathlon was run. "If I can't participate, I suppose I could try and think of some kind of cheer for it." The idea of someone trying to be a cheerleader sort for what she was pretty sure was a quiet trivia competition was amusing. She got a little bit of an extra kick out of it knowing about her own life experiences,

((I forgot how early homecoming dances are for high schoolers. It was also really early for some kind of competition, maybe there'll be semi-nationals and nationals later in our story?
Gives them a change of scenery for school, and Vanna can be cute and charming, at least for the sake of her image))

Sigr · Oct 15, 2017

"Whoa, Parker got a girlfriend?" Flash mocked Peter's defense of Savannah, making him fidget a bit, not wanting to get into a misunderstanding. "If everyone I defend from your poor jabs is my couple I wouldn't have time to study" Peter managed to answer, a bit stuttery but better than usual nonetheless. Perhaps he was getting a bit better in those situations, although he was aware that his social awkwardness would come to bite his ass sooner than later. Luckily, Savannah herself had a verbal jab of her own for Flash, making him flinch and reconsider his position a bit, noticing that the new girl was nothing to scoff at.

"It's also about reflexes, pushing the beeper first and acting under pressure..." Peter commented with Savannah, not forcing her too join of course, but he wanted her to share interest with the misfits she had sat during lunch. "But yeah, mostly trivia" he shrugged after all. "I'm sure there are other clubs or something you can join, but maybe this one was of your liking..." he commented, noticing something and taking pause. What did Savannah like? It had been clear in the cafeteria that Peter himself was a nerd, that Ned loved Star Wars and Michelle liked messing with people, but what did Savannah like? She had to have some hobbies after all, but Peter wasn't aware of what those could be.

Before Peter could further dwell on the issue, Michelle appeared out of nowhere as usual, startling everyone a bit. It was clear that Savannah wasn't sure of if she should stay or go, join or not, as she hovered between Peter and Michelle. Perhaps she was avoiding Ned? Nah, Ned could be enthusiastic and noisy, but he was nice and as tone deaf as he could sometimes be, he could pick up on signs and wouldn't bother Savannah with Star Wars marathons if she didn't want to. Savannah's idea surprised Peter, making him stare at the blonde girl in disbelief. At first it was just the sheer surprise of such an unorthodox idea, something that was nowhere near conventional but perhaps could work between rounds? It was then when his mind took a detour and his staring was met with a bit of flushing.

"M-Maybe?" Peter mumbled, trying to stop imagining Savannah with a yellow, blue and white cheerleader outfit, short skirt and all. "I don't know if it's allowed..." he paused. "Wait, was it a joke?" Peter realized the possibility, although he had no clue. He could be awful at reading people, he wasn't as good as Michelle for sure, but he wasn't sure of if Savannah was just messing with him or not. "Or maybe not? I don't know anymore" he kind of surrendered, smiling softly at the thought of the new girl being comfortable enough to mess around with them. She sure would look cute though, her blonde curls bouncing and such, the image still plaguing Peter's young mind.

(That was cute and made Peter imagine things, poor kid. And yeah, we can make a variety of state, east coast, national or even international competitions to change scenery. If Spider-Man starts appearing in those places sure Michelle is going to have an easier time finding out if it doesn't know sooner)

Virginia Greene · Oct 28, 2017

"I notice you're alone," was her only response to Flash's girlfriend comment. Was having a significant other bad now? Because otherwise she didn't understand the joke. Unless the point was that there was something unappealing about her, and she knew for a fact that she was attractive. More when she tried to be, but Savannah wasn't exactly giving it her best shot right now. She didn't want to get too much attention, after all. Then again, Peter was nice to look at and that didn't seem to help how people treated him. So Savannah supposed that she didn't really know how that shit was judged. Maybe it was a combination of status built up since earlier grades and social class. Sounded stupid, but seemed likely. Skill was the only thing that should matter in things like this. Someone's parents' money didn't have anything to do with their personal skill, it should mean nothing.

She nodded to show that she was paying attention. "I've got good reflexes, at least." That was very true. She hadn't primed them for something like this, though. "Guess I'll find out." Attending a club meeting wasn't exactly signing a blood pact that promised participation, after all. Which was almost a bummer, she'd respect that. "If I know any answers I'll slap your or Ned's buttons. Or you or Ned, so you guys can do it yourselves." Violence jokes might not go over well with everyone so she made sure her tone was light and playful. "Don't know how possessive people are of their buzzers." Could be very personal. It wasn't, obviously, they were just buzzers, but it could be.

If she was near Peter she'd probably be near Ned, and while Savannah certainly wasn't going to make an active attempt to avoid him, the teen's excited interest in.... nerd things was potentially problematic. Once she'd had time to get a survey of popular culture she'd have an easier time interacting with him one on one. Right now, Peter and Michelle were both good buffers. 'Best friends' was an idea that would need pondering. Ned and Peter seemed close, and it brought back vague memories and feelings that she definitely didn't want to deal with right now. And Peter had just stood up for her, that made him an ally. It had been entirely unnecessary, but it had saved her fr om the brief moment where she'd considered getting aggressive with Flash. Probably didn't need to try and strip someone down to their insecurities on her first day of school. "It was a joke," she c]onfirmed, a little bit amused. "I don't think it would be helpful or appropriate to do that. If I don't join the team I'll at least wear the right colors and hold a sign." If she went, anyway. "I think I'm more active than intellectual." But she had to be smart to be at the school, so while the comment was true, it didn't exactly mean she was going to be left too far in the dust.

Michelle had finished sorting through the cards and tapped the collection of them against the wood of the table, and the several thuds caught peoples' attention. Her first question was multiple choice, a question with two answers that were both technically correct and set up in a way that someone who hadn't paid very close attention to the phrasing of the question itself would be more likely to pick the wrong one. Savannah's blank face made it pretty clear that she had no idea what was being talked about, which was not unexpected. She had warned them, after all. Nobody would ever know what she was really good at, and that was fine. For now she'd just listen, memorize the answers to things, and observe how everyone acted during it. Team events were interesting, but there was no real support or backup that could be played with something like this. So if they were a team, it probably had to be in the form of emotional support. Otherwise it was just a bunch of smart people who'd allied themselves together but didn't really function as a unit.

That was another reason Savannah wasn't sure she'd be any good at this. Her teamwork was iffy, and her ability to emotionally support was poorly lacking. She wouldn't even know where to start.

((MY LIFE IS BACK IN ORDER))

Sigr · Oct 30, 2017

Since he was outnumbered, Flash opted for staying silent and that way save himself any more cutting answers. Getting confirmation that the cheerleading idea was a joke, Peter couldn't help but feel a bit silly, since the plan didn't make much sense to begin with. That didn't prevent that the image of a short skirted Savannah with pompoms lingered on his mind more than it should, but he was able to move on to avoid getting caught daydreaming unaware by Michelle, or even worse, by Savannah herself. Peter was eager to prove that he was good at it, a sense of misplaced pride pushing him, so he paid as much attention as he could to Michelle.

Since Peter had welcomed Savannah to be between Ned and him, in case she did want to try her chance with the buzzers and answer a question, he had to focus extra hard on the questions themselves to not be distracted. Once Michelle asked her first question, Peter hit his buzzer with surprising speed, making Ned open his eyes wide and baffling even Peter himself. He usually restrained a bit during competition, since even if his powers wouldn't help him answering properly, they certainly did allow him to push the buzzer faster than anyone else. "Ah... eh..." Peter mumbled, aware of his unusual buzzing speed, Ned's face, and how he did the exact opposite of what he wanted. One thing was wanting Savannah to see that he was smart and cool, that the quiz thing could be fun, but another one entirely was to out himself in the eyes of Michelle.

To make matters worse, Peter not only didn't know the correct answer, also his own mishap caused him to froze and mumble the wrong one stuttering, more worried of Michelle suspecting him than thinking clearly. "You must also know the correct answer, Parker, not just push buttons like an excited toddler" Flash smirked, getting the focus of the attention and inadvertently saving Peter a little bit, making his heightened reflexes look like some spastic clumsy bout than the feat they really were. "Just warming up, I started to move towards the buzzer even before Michelle finished" Peter lied, trying to excuse himself.

Virginia Greene · Nov 8, 2017

She dismissed the option of a chair because it would make it pretty crammed at the small tables they were using, content to just stand. She wanted the chance to stretch her legs after all the time spent sitting in school. Savannah was unused to it, and she used her home schooling as an excuse for it, though really it was more the fact that she hadn't gone this long in a normal day without the intense level of physical training she was used to. School PE wasn't really the same.

As close as she was, Savannah noticed. But she didn't know what it meant it didn't seem much faster than the average person might hit a button, so instead of interpreting it as a reflexes thing, she assumed that he was overeager. Either in general, or because he was showing off a little. She knew about that, though her excited showing off had been weaponry and the only person who'd mattered was her dad. He hadn't allowed for that sort of thing, but it didn't mean she didn't understand it. Normal teenagers should be allowed to get excited about things. Life was good and important, and everyone should enjoy it in ways that she didn't and couldn't anymore. Being around other people her age was weird. Made her feel... something? 'Relaxed' wasn't the right word, but there was some sort of weight that felt like it was off of her shoulders now. She wasn't sure what to make of it, so for now she was enjoying it in some way.

When Flash spoke, one of her eyebrows arched gracefully and Savannah moved very quietly while the attention was more on Peter and then leaned down, placing a hand on the table and more or less blocking the line of vision between Peter and the annoying teen on his right through the use of her body and her hair. It left her facing Peter and Ned, and she smiled at the two of them like she was interested in something that they were specifically doing, though there was nothing but scrap paper for working out problems and the buzzers. "Doesn't seem like the best way to do things, but I don't know how this works." The fact that it seemed like she was paying Peter particular attention was sort of secondary to the fact that her plan was just to put her back to Flash. Fairness was important to her in this sort of thing. Peter had stood up for her, even if she didn't want it, and fair play said that she did the same thing for him. She didn't want to fight Flash or anything, so this was what she'd do. Let the guy know there was no positive attention he could get from her, that all he'd get to see was her back.

"Got one that isn't just memorization, Michelle?" Was there one that she could answer, in other words. The darker skinned teen shrugged, and flipped through a few of her cards until she found one that could be solved on a piece of paper and read it out. Whatever interest Savannah had seemed to fade after a few moments of thinking, and she ended up leaning in closer over Peter's shoulder to see what he would do. This was one that she actually knew, but she was going to go ahead and pretend that she didn't. It would be better if nobody started wanting her to actually participate, after all. It was advantageous that this was the smartest of the smart, because it meant that not being able to keep up didn't mean her admission into the school was questionable.

Sigr · Nov 9, 2017

It seemed that Peter was once more worrying about nothing at all, but the presence of Savannah and Michelle's acumen had him paranoid. Even if he had got out stronger and more sure of himself after it, the whole experience with Adrian Toomes had given him pause. He knew who Spider-Man was, Aunt May knew it, Ned knew it... Not to mention Tony and who knew how many people on his team. It made him feel vulnerable and worried, but both feelings went away as soon as Savannah leaned over, her face and hair occupying all of Peter's view, all of Peter's mind. "No, it's not the best..." he weakly agreed almost automatically, busier with those green eyes that looked at him more than anything else. She was so close... why was she so close? Did she like him? Don't be silly, it's just cramped in here.

Peter had a moment of pause when Savannah talked to Michelle and he could escape the scrutiny, no, the beauty of those eyes that were so close. Slightly blushed, his dark brown eyes looked down after a trip around that blonde hair, seeking the security, the dullness of the blank paper. Michelle gave them a question that required some work, but Peter couldn't focus on it. That moment almost made his earlier lie of hating Math become true, even if he was good at it and enjoyed it, now he was completely unable to sort it out. He could do it, it wasn't so hard- was Savannah closer now? Why was she closer? His eyes darted to the corner, then back at the paper.

Ned's buzzer startled Peter, his awareness of the situation and the proximity of Savannah were the only things keeping him from jumping from his seat. Of course, his friend and computer genius had the correct answer, one that he could have guessed himself if he wasn't so stupidly worried over nothing at the moment. Maybe he needed to clear his head, swing around... No. Not at the moment. But tonight. That night he was getting out in costume for sure. Stopping some crooks and rescuing cats from trees would help him relax. "That's why we play as a team" Peter commented, offering Ned an awkward nerdy fist bump that was soon returned.

Virginia Greene · Nov 20, 2017

Ugh. He looked flustered. That hadn't been Savannah's intention, she'd wanted to just block out Flash so that Peter would concentrate, Flash would shut up, and she could learn things. Only one of those things had happened, and now she was stuck staring at his stupid blushing face. It was one of the first times she'd seen someone her age blush though, and she wasn't sure she liked it. She didn't like it when other people seemed charming or cute. It was something to learn from, though. It would get other people, and she knew that. So the best thing to do would be master that look and use it. There had to be some way to blush on cue. She could use any of the other necessary facial expressions with ease, but this one hadn't been necessary. Interacting with people her age was probably the time it would become so.

She would spend some time online learning about everything she could while she waited for the sun to go down after this was over.

When it became clear that Ned had the answer to the math problem and not Peter, she straightened and moved over to his part of the table to look at the scrap paper the algorithm was written on. "Oh. Yeah, okay." She could see where she'd gone wrong. "I got stuck halfway through." She glanced back at Peter, and nodded. "I can see the appeal." The idea of teamwork bothered her, but Savannah supposed it was because she was imagining being a team with anyone but her dad. She had gotten very used to teamwork, as long as it was one specific person every time. "Do you all learn all of it, or does everyone get a different focus?" That might be a good plan, but knowledge was power. Punching was also power, but in this new world with heroes and villains, knowledge made a difference. People hid their identities for a reason. The only one who hadn't was the one who didn't think he had anything to lose. The new one running around New York, he had the whole mask thing going. Hopefully they'd never meet, she didn't exactly consider heroes allies. Didn't want to go too far and run into the gun guy either though.

The next question was medical, more specifically about the fight-or-flight response. She knew that well, she'd spent so long working on her own because her natural response as a child had been flight and sometimes freezing. Making the switch had been unnatural, and pretty often painful. But rather than spending time in reflection, Savannah allowed herself to get for it. She had an answer for why she knew it too, so it was okay. She didn't want to not know anything, lack of knowledge would be more suspicious than knowledge here. So a question about brain chemistry? Totally cool. Her slender hand shot out, palm pressing down on Ned's buzzer. "Norepinephrine." Her reflexes were fast but they were human fast, excusable by something like gymnastics. Technically true, she had exceptional balance, could do flips, and could do the splits. that was probably most of what gymnastics was. If it wasn't, whatever. "Right," Michelle said, looking entirely unsurprised. This time the curly haired blond didn't bothered to look too happy about it, but that was because she'd had entire confidence in her answer. She remembered learning it. She'd poured over medical textbooks that had been bought or, on one occasion, stolen from a used bookstore. Had to know how the human body worked to manipulate it, to weaponize it. Almost everything was chemical, it could all be ignored and overcome.

Sigr · Nov 21, 2017

"Well, it's interesting to compete..." Peter admitted to Savannah, more driven by the will to improve himself than any need to beat someone else. "Everyone has their things where we are good at, naturally I mean. After all it's mostly about applying what we study in quiz form?" Peter tried to explain. "And I like board games so it's a bit like Trivial Pursuit but without dice?" he shrugged.

"It's a Pursuit for sure, and it's Trivial most of the time" Ned added in the goofiest wordplay ever. "But we got a trophy recently, so... depending on how much you like bragging rights. Flash sure loves them" he said, sporting a smile without malice. He really didn't like Flash, but Ned lacked the ill will to really have a grudge over it.

"Michelle crushed it" Peter added, even if he hadn't been there, Ned had told him what happened afterwards. "The tournament, not the trophy" he added with a smile. "I don't think it's about practice... we don't study for it, at least I don't think we do. Apart from Flash I mean..." he shrugged. Peter was usually good at it, but never studied for it nor did Ned and Michelle, or at least as far as he was aware of. The next question had Peter thinking of it, aware that he knew it but he couldn't quite nail the word without a couple seconds more, when Ned's buzzer ringed. Peter turned his head surprised, as biology wasn't his forte, but as he looked towards him, all Peter watched was Savannah answering the question with rock solid confidence.

"I couldn't repeat the word and I just heard it" Ned admitted, smiling at Savannah.

"That was nice!" Peter said, offering a high five to the blonde girl.

Virginia Greene · Dec 2, 2017

"I don't think I've ever played Trivial Pursuit." Savannah wasn't much of a board game girl in general. She'd played them before it was just her and her dad, but afterwards there hadn't been a lot of time for board games. She hadn't known it involved dice, but that didn't surprise her. That was how basically all board games worked, as far as she could tell. If it didn't, she was pretty sure it counted as a card game instead. If anyone was going to be able to tell her the difference, it would probably be Peter and Ned. Maybe she'd ask one of them after this was over. Most likely she wouldn't. Her new 'family' had a lot of board games, she'd have to learn to play them eventually in order to socialize properly with them. They didn't seem to have too many expectations, but she wasn't going to give them any reason to be concerned about her. That meant game nights, probably. If that was what... normal families did.

One blonde eyebrow arched at Ned's wordplay, but she smiled. Wordplay wasn't one of her skills, so it was something worth rewarding with that much at least. Plus she was being friendly, that's what people were supposed to do. "Trophies seem like a decent motivator." She recalled being pleased getting one back in elementary school for soccer. Her father had praised her for her sport skills, he had always valued athleticism. Her mother less so, but she'd still been proud. Savannah had been proud of herself. She still was, for different reasons, though she knew that pride had no place in what she did.

She looked unsurprised at the fact Michelle had participated and done well. "The clarification was needed," she admitted, and Michelle shot them a deadpan look that even Savannah couldn't read. "So it's just an application of things you learned in classes already," she clarified, assuming that was what he meant when he said they didn't study. Because otherwise they were just picking this stuff up randomly during the day and she was not prepared to live in a city where complex math questions just happened on the subway. School was, she had learned over the course of the day, not something that her skill set had fully prepared her for.

His surprise did not go unnoticed, which wasn't unexpected. The effort had seemed necessary, and she didn't regret it now that she'd answered. Her intelligence had been at least partially established, or at least her ability to remember weird brain chemicals had. Still no intention of trying to compete in this... club thing. There just wasn't time now that she was going to have to her homework as well as training and night patrol. When Peter held out his hand, Savannah stared at it for a moment and then lifted her own and gave him a high five. "Thanks." As to Ned's words, she shrugged. "It's just the same kind of memorization as anything else." Less likely to come up in classes admittedly, unless it was something specialized. "That was probably my one, don't start getting expectations." Unless there were more medical questions, and she wasn't sure she wanted to answer only those in case it brought some kind of suspicion upon her. She hadn't even gone out yet to do her thing anywhere in the state of New York so there was pretty much no way that anyone could figure out who she was, but she was still cautious.

((I'm super cool on scene changes so whenever you're ready we can move on to get them out of decathalon and towards their first meeting in costume. Vanna's gonna get his number eventually, but it might be later))

Sigr · Dec 3, 2017

Even if Savannah downplayed how she had given the correct answer quickly, she did return Peter's high five, so there was that. Of course, she insisted that the quiz wasn't her forte, so Peter didn't get his hopes up of her joining. It was a bit weird, because she would be his only friend that wasn't on the club, but that was fine. After what happened with the homecoming dance, he needed to broaden his horizons and improve. Maybe he wasn't Avenger material quite yet, but he did pass Tony's test and the temptation of that new, nifty suit, so he was getting better. It had been bittersweet, but he had also caught his big bad guy, so Peter couldn't help but wonder what awaited him in the future.

With the added interest of having Savannah there, the afternoon passed like a breeze, and soon the quiz lovers disbanded and went home, leaving school behind until the next day. Some pointed looks were crossed between Ned and Peter, understanding that it was going to be an evening of action, or at least of patrolling until the action presented itself. For the first time in weeks, Peter felt a bit cheery, eager to return to the school the next day to keep talking with Savannah instead of being constantly mindful that Liz was no longer there.

"Will you be careful?" Aunt May insisted for the umpteenth time, naturally worrying about Peter as he suited up.

"Yes..." he automatically answered once more, making sure the systems were fine.

"For sure?" May added once more.

"Yeah..." Peter adjusted his suit.

"Are you okay with me dating the restaurant owner?" May asked jokingly, testing him.

"Of course..." Peter answered, barely hearing the question. "Wait, what?" he looked up, the suit's eyes widening.

"I knew you weren't paying attention!" May scolded.

"I'll be careful and I'll be fine, unless you kill me with a heart attack first" Peter promised with a joke.

"Karen, please take care of him" May asked, having taken the habit of talking to the suit's AI as if she was some kind of babysitter.

"I'll do, don't worry May" Karen answered out loud though the suit. It was amazing the amounts of stuff Stark could pack in such a thing.

"That's two against one..." Peter whined.

That night it turned out he was on his own, as Ned had been grounded after leaving Lego pieces scattered all around, so Peter would only have Karen in his ear. Hopping for a mugger or perhaps some thugs looking for a fight, Peter swung around New York wildly, freeing his mind of trouble and noise. What he didn't know nor could anyone foresee, was that the night had a surprise in store for him.

Virginia Greene · Dec 18, 2017

The decathalon training had been... something. Fun? It might have been fun. It had been hard not to find Peter and Ned entertaining, and being surrounded by people who worked well together and seemed like they were (mostly) friends. And then it was over and she said goodbye to more people than she'd even known before today.

Savannah had done her homework at the kitchen table when she got back to what she supposed she should call 'home' and then excused herself, saying that she was exhausted from this whole normal kid thing. Her adopted 'family' knew the details about her father, but as far as anyone had been told, she'd been the hapless victim hauled from place to place with an increasingly unstable father who kept her locked in motel rooms. Like they'd practiced, she'd gritted her teeth and explained away the scars as his rage and instability, and everyone had bought it. It was a good card to play, people didn't bother traumatized people. So after that she had locked her door and climbed out the window, closing it most of the way behind her. Then it was off to the bus station. Her outfit was just a black hoodie, black pants, red high tops, thin but sturdy gloves, and a red scarf. Of course, it was all set up so as not to attract attention until she was ready to be in 'work mode'. Her sweatshirt was on inside out, to expose a large, cutesy iron-on owl applique and light blue stripes down the arms that she'd carefully attached herself so that the stitching couldn't been seen when it was worn as it was supposed to be. She'd removed the tag carefully and selected a style where the fact it was inside out wouldn't be very visible, especially not in the fading light of dusk and the streetlights of night. The backpack her equipment was being shoved into could be flipped inside out, and under the sweatshirt she had on a short dress that was pinned up. It took about thirty seconds to completely change her look, she'd been timed before. Took longer to flip the backpack around, but a nondescript black backpack was a common addition. She had a pair of glasses with lenses that were just plastic on her face, because that was a detail people tended to focus on that was easy to ignore.

Once she'd gotten to the area she'd decided was most likely to be problematic, the teen stopped and took a little time to flip her sweatshirt and put on her fake glasses, reaching up to make sure that her hair had stayed pulled back. She armed herself - poorly, most of the things she'd used had been taken by the police as evidence - and then started walking the streets until something caught her eye. She recognized the body language. From the way their hands were in their pockets to the way they their shoulders were to the way they walked towards the store, Savannah knew it all. She moved quietly across the street and followed the in three men to the small convenience store, catching the door a few centimeters before it closed and slipping in without them noticing she'd been on their tail at all. They were anxious and focused on only one thing, she was small and skilled.

The beginnings of the conversation got tuned out while she got one of the retro glass bottles of sprite out of the cooler, and she only focused when she heard the voices start to raise. The demands didn't much matter to her, she was entirely focused on the tone of voice, catching the rising anger and stress. Sighing, she pulled her scarf up over her nose and reached into her pocket withdrawing a small metal stick that, when she snapped her wrist, extended into an almost two foot long baton. Tossing the glass bottle up she caught it by the neck and then sidestepped, took two seconds to line things up, and then let it loose. The moment it left her fingers she was running. The bottle hit the man's hand, and the sound of a gunshot rang out into the street.

The bullet had buried itself harmlessly in the wall but she was very aware that she was on a time limit now. The store owner had ducked down under the counter and was probably calling the police, she needed to be far away before they got here. The man closest to her had his hand behind his back and was grabbing something, so he was who she focused on first. The baton caught the man in the soft skin inside his arm, forcing his hand away from where the gun was tucked into his waistband and she kept moving, intent on driving him back and keeping him between herself and his two friends. She also needed to get to the other weapon though, it wouldn't stay out of play very long. Take them down fast, in other words. Her foot lashed out, catching the man she'd already engaged in the side of the knee, and she took the moment he was a little off balance to hit him hard in the stomach with the baton, grab his head, and slam it hard into the counter. "Don't move." The click of a gun's safety sounded almost as loud as the bullet would in a few seconds, and Savannah did just what he said. Without waiting for him to say anything she started to raise her hands slowly, glancing at the small CCTV she could see in the corner. He was close enough. She started to turn and then grabbed his wrist, yanking his arm and the gun past her body and pulling him down lower. Her elbow shot out to catch him in the face and there was a crunch that.... satisfied her in some way. It shouldn't have, from a logical human being standpoint she knew that. She got nothing from the whimper though, it was just a sound of weakness that meant that she had a chance. The guy she'd slammed into the counter hadn't become satisfactorily unconscious, so she whacked this one in the throat with the baton and then kicked him in the head when he fell. That worked.

Meanwhile the man she'd hit with the bottle was bending down to pick his gun back up as his friend shook off the fuzzy bleariness of the impact his head had made and wiped some of the blood off of his face, having to hang onto the counter to keep his balance as he stood up. Without her father there, Savannah had a bit of a light touch. Not that anyone was going to be calling it that but her. She was out of practice, pushups and drills in her bedroom while she'd been settled hadn't done much to help. There hadn't been room to do the things she'd used to do, nobody to train with for weeks.

((I had a thought. Maybe once secret identities have been revealed and they're becoming a more stable dynamic duo, Vanna might pick up a spider related codename. She'd be happy to do everything with just hand signals and noises, but Peter likes to talk.))

Sigr · Dec 19, 2017

Peter swung around New York, enjoying the freedom of being just able to feel the wind against his suit and the city flashing under him, a blur of lights in the middle of the night. It was in those rare moments where Peter's head felt mostly empty, free of any concerns of the day, but it didn't last long, as his brain soon returned to the event of the day, the new student, the new person in his life. Savannah. Was he falling for her? He didn't think so, he had just met her that day, and he didn't just stare at her with awe like he did with Liz, their few interactions before the dance usually limited to the Academic Decathlon team. Was not being a mess around her meant that he didn't like her? Maybe he was getting better at it, it being dealing with girls? For a moment he considered asking Karen for advice, but luckily he noticed that having such an idea already marked him as a nerd that knew no better.

"I'm picking up a police call. Convenience store, three blocks east" Karen informed. "You could also spend a bit of time with her and figure out if you like Savannah" she added.

"Wha-? How..." Peter mumbled, the masks' eyes opening wide as did his own.

"I can't read your mind, but you mumbled half of what you were thinking, Peter" Karen explained. "Even if I'm not designed to offer relationship advice maybe I-" Karen continued, getting interrupted by him.

"No! Nononono. Not now. Maybe not ever" he mumbled, embarrassed. "You said a convenience store to the east?" Peter asked, changing topics to an actual emergency.

"Noted. Also showing the location on the HUD" Karen agreed, showing the approximate location of the store.

Hurrying up there, it didn't took long for Peter to see some hectic movement between dark figures inside the store. "Cleanup aisle one!" he called, getting into the store swinging down, webbing the thugs hand to the very counter he was leaning to. As he used his other hand in a vain attempt to release the first, he webbed it as well to the first one. "And now think of what you have done and the mistakes you made in life, you young man!" he added, shifting his attention to the other standing robber. "Oh no, you don't" Peter enclosed both hand and gun as the thief got hold of it, immobilizing it and his fist. Jumping to the roof, he stood on it upside down. "Stop!" he pulled on the web, making the thug hit himself in the face with the webbed gun and fist. "Hitting!" he added, pulling for a second time. "Yourself!" a third and last one, as the thug was unconscious.

Peter left the web thread stuck to the ceiling, leaving the unconscious thug hanging from an arm, while the one stuck to the counter still tried to unstuck himself, looking ridiculous in the process. The store owner got up from behind the counter, seeing that something was weird, and seeing the robbers down or out, he punched the one stuck in the counter into unconsciousness. "Whoa, mean right there sir, but lets leave the rest to the police, will we?" he asked. "Thank you Spider-Man and..." the owner said, looking to the unknown figure.

"Yeah, who are you?" Peter eyed the smallish figure, the mask eyes widening. For the look of it, she seemed a woman, maybe a young one, but the clothes did a nice work covering almost everything of her. "Glasses... girl?" he wondered. The impromptu outfit reminded him of his days past, before he got Stark backing him off. Was she in a similar situation? He had arrived late, so he didn't see what kind of powers she may have. "I guess we should be out of here..." Spider-Man commented, hearing police sirens getting close.

(That would be both sweet and funny at the same time. I can already see Peter suggesting awful names. Or maybe Ned.)

Virginia Greene · Dec 31, 2017

The appearance of the red and blue costumed man took Savannah by surprise, and had he not immediately attacked one of the men she might have taken a swing at him just reflexively. Instead let the hero do his thing, watching him carefully. He sure was relying on that webbing. Planning her potential fight tactics wasn’t something she started consciously, but it was running through her head all the same. Get in close where his webbing could be easily directed at her forearm or his hand could be knocked out of the way entirely. Treat it like someone with guns, and she would probably do okay. She had a knife and a taser on her person, and she still had the gun. Didn't know how many bullets were in it though, so it was not an optimal weapon for now.

Why was he so loud? And dramatic, he was dramatic too. Not a huge problem for Savannah, who took the time where everyone was distracted to grab the gun from the waistband of the man webbed to the counter, using her body to keep the hero from seeing her and knowing that the shopkeeper was too distracted to notice, and tucked it away before dropping back a few steps hoping that she'd be able to slink away without having to interact with Spider-Man too much. She couldn't manage it though, and had to bite back her irritated expression. She didn't know why he'd feel the need to get out of the area before the cops came, as far as she could tell he had some sort of Avengers seal of approval (or a least she'd seen him save a boat with Iron Man and not get arrested afterwards), but she definitely had to be out of there. Getting asked questions wasn't something that she wanted to deal with. "Get out of my way and I will." Something in his voice had triggered a little ping in her brain and she had no idea why, so when she spoke the blonde pitched her voice a little bit lower. She moved around him gracefully, leaving a very pointed amount of space between her and the costumed man.

The bell on the door jingled as she stepped out into the street, seemingly ignoring both Spider-Man and the shopkeeper. In truth she was acutely aware of the costumed hero, and was incredibly prepared to slam the door shut if he tried to do anything. She'd seen the webbing, that wasn't something she wanted to deal with. None of him was something she wanted to deal with, but that was one of those weird hero things. She was hoping that he would let her be on her way - she had done a good thing, so it wasn't like he had any reason to hassle her. Maybe her weapon, but she wasn't going to assume that the dude knew the laws on telescoping batons in New York. Even if he did, would he really be petty enough to try and call her on having a technically illegal weapon when she'd been in the middle of stopping a robbery? Probably not.

The problem was solved but in an unsatisfactory way. Something deep inside still itched and stung and the only thing Savannah knew to treat it was to work. She still wanted to fight, still wanted to hit someone. The only way she would sleep was if she wore herself out a little and exercises just weren’t cutting it anymore. She had so much energy, and when she stopped moving she started thinking. About her dad, about school, about the people she’d met there. Those were things she didn’t know how to handle, feelings she didn’t know how to interpret. Fighting though? Fighting she understood. Fighting she was good at. Maybe she could find something else. A drug deal, a weapons sale, something that would let her get the stress out. A weapons sale would also mean the chance for her to reequip, get things that she wouldn't have been able to otherwise. With Hammer Industries and all the technology from the aliens she was sure ended up on the street occasionally, there was the chance she'd be able to relieve some criminals of something useful.

It was probably unlikely though, because it didn't seem like Spider-Man was swinging off home or at least away from her.

((sorry I swapped my posting order, I had most of this written while we talked about Matt and Jess's direction.))

Sigr · Jan 8, 2018

Something about the tone of her voice gave Spider-Man pause, as she sounded young yet deep, definitely a young woman, although he wasn't one to judge. He didn't want to get stuck giving out explanations to the police, specially since the things with the Avengers were... at pause, so to speak, given that he avoided the press conference, the nifty new suit and the definitive public endorsement. You never knew when you could find a police officer that wasn't hot on superheroes, so it was better to make oneself scarce given that the thugs were down and out. "I can see she's not the friendly neighbor type" Spider-Man mused, leaning on the counter. Who was her? Peter had never stumbled upon her, but then again, he never met any of the other vigilantes that were around New York either, so who knew anymore how much of them were around? "As tempting as it is to keep talking and get some..." Spider-Man commented eyeing the products around the counter, "Vegan Beef Jerky? I've to go" he finished his one way chat with the still dazed shopkeeper, getting out.

"Time to know the neighbor, friendly or not" Peter sighed, swinging with his webs and following the dark figure from above.

"Should be follow her in stealth mode to see where she goes?" Karen suggested.

"That sounds the kind of thing a villain or Stark would do" Peter sighed. "Outing someone is not cool, she's no villain- wait. Do we have a stealth mode?" Peter commented surprised.

"There are many features that-" Karen started, soon interrupted.

"That's not the point" Peter said. "Chasing a fellow hero to their home would be weird" noted.

"And following a young woman along a dark alleyway is fine as long as it's just a bit?" Karen asked. Ouch, she had been programmed with a bite, for sure.

"Point taken" Peter groaned, lowering herself at street level in front of her. "Spider-Man here, it wasn't my first team up, but I'm glad it worked..." he spoke, a bit nervous about the approach. "So... are you one of those vigilantes?" he asked, keeping his mouth running before she could answer. "I'm with the Avengers... kind of. Things are a bit weird. Not that I'm kind like an intern but..." he shook his head, keeping her pace. "So do you have powers like that bulletproof dude from Harlem?" he wondered.

(It's perfectly fine, don't worry. I tend to wait to update both threads the same day anyways, so I don't mind it in the slightest. Recovering from a cold and general Spanish holiday marathon nonsense, so I'm slower than usual.)

Virginia Greene · Jan 24, 2018

He was following her. Chances were that even if he hadn't been Savannah would still have assumed that Spider-Man was on her tail, just sneakier than she was capable of keeping lookout for. This was not the case though, and when he dropped down in front of her the teen looked so absolutely unimpressed that it was obvious even behind the fake glasses and with her scarf covering her mouth. She let him talk, standing what felt like a safe distance in case the man in the suit decided to do something that she was going to have to react to. In the end it was just words and while she didn't relax, she at least didn't think that he was going to attack her at the moment. "You need to get better at stealth," she informed him blandly, which seemed to be the response he was going to get instead of having his question about her powers answered. It was better to keep her cards close to her chest, after all. If he didn't know what she could do, he'd be less likely to engage her at a close range and without something that would allow her to figure out that an attack was coming. She had never considered exactly what she was, but vigilante worked she supposed. It wasn't incorrect. As far as she was concerned what she did was no different than what any 'hero' did, though she didn't think it was worth it to bring that point up. She felt like people who called themselves heroes were probably going to be sensitive about the comparison and just didn't have the time to get into it with some dude in spandex. "And if you don't want people to think you're an intern, don't deny it without being asked."

She turned, changing direction slightly. Savannah's goal was to fight, and she'd spent time researching crime statistics to figure out the general area she should be in to make sure that she found herself as many of those as possible. Eventually she'd establish an information network like her father always seemed to have, but first that meant finding someone who was in it and willing to snitch in order to keep their bones intact. That could take a while, and the small teen was impatient. It wasn't something she revealed outwardly, but the impatience joined the many darker thoughts and feelings stewing inside her that found release only when she was in motion. A car jacker, a drug deal, a weapon sale, anything would work. He'd interrupted the last fight and while she was reluctantly willing to admit (to herself, not to him) that she hadn't been at the top of her game, she hadn't gotten the satisfaction of ending the fight properly.

It seemed like the dude was going to be tagging along until he was done talking, so she changed direction slightly. She'd just do what she was going to do until he was satisfied and left her alone, she supposed. "D'ya want something?" Maybe she could speed this conversation along. She wasn't looking to make friends or get a side kick, she just finding to find another person or three to punch repeatedly in the face and then go back to the house. She couldn't do that when he was here bothering her. "I'm not much of a... 'team up' sort of person." And he definitely wasn't her style of team mate. For one thing, it was going to be entirely impossible to do things the way she wanted to. He stood out too much. Talked too much, too. His alliance with the Avengers didn't exactly win him any favor with her either. As far as she was concerned there weren't any good heroes. There were ones who weren't bad, but everything they showed up to ended poorly for civilians in some way. Her grudge against Tony Stark was more personal, and as far as she was concerned he tainted the whole pool. What were people going to learn from him, how to fuck everything up and cause a bunch of unnecessary deaths?

"I assumed that once someone got a proper costume," she'd call it 'proper' though she wasn't entirely sure about it, "they upgraded from convenience store robberies to pulling babies out of burning buildings and fighting other costumed people. Or cleaning up Stark messes." It had sort of been what she was banking on, and clearly Savannah had assumed incorrectly. She was still entirely sure she wasn't about to run into the man in armor himself, but even this guy was too much. But if he wasn't going to immediately leave her alone, she could use the time to gather information so that she'd have an easier time ignoring heroes in the future.

Extracurricular Activities [Spider-Man -- Sigr & Virginia]

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