golden | peter parker

six

Penny woke up before her alarm even had the chance to blare Replay. Her eyes were still puffy from crying last night.

Penny and William had worked things out, her curfew wasn't as ridiculous, and she promised to keep in touch more often than the one text. It was all just a big misunderstanding, and William was just being overly protective.

He felt incredibly guilty after he had hung up on her. When Penny got home he made sure to explain why he acted the way he did. He was just worried that he would lose her, like he lost Penny's mother. William would do anything to keep her out of harm's way, even if it meant being way too overprotective. Penny understood this, but was still justifiably upset. 

She rolled out of bed and did her morning routine in record time. By the time she got into the kitchen it was 6:53, and not even Sara was out of the bedroom. Penny decided to skip breakfast and go straight to school. She felt slightly guilty that her and Peter never finished planning, so she was gonna finish it up at school and show him in Algebra.

Penny left a note on the counter explaining where she was and started walking to the subway station. Her camera was hanging around her neck, just in case a certain webslinger decided he wanted to make a special appearance.

She was still on the lookout as she walked into the tunnel, swiping her MetroCard and hopping on the F-train.

The subway stopped at the next station and Penny got off. She walked the three blocks to her school and immediately went to her first class of the day: World History. 

Since it was only 7:08 she had almost 35 minutes to work hard on her project before class started.

She was scribbling down every possible detail that she could think of, and every thesis that would be good for the paper.

At around 7:30, Michelle came in and sat down next to Penny reading an entirely new book.

The class started filling up and it was slowly getting louder, making Penny's concentration start to waver.

She sighed in annoyance that she was interrupted, but smiled down at the work she had accomplished. It would make researching the specific type of genetic engineering so much easier.

Penny zoned out for the class period, not bothering to pay attention about German Unification. Michelle on more than one occasion had to kick her chair to keep her from falling asleep. And that was why Penny loved Michelle, girls support girls, they kept each other awake.

The period ended and they said their quick goodbyes and would see each other at lunch.

Penny grinned as she walked to her favorite class: photography. It was an elective that she saw and knew she absolutely had to take. It was admittedly very slow for her, and luckily her teacher recognized this. Most of the times, Penny was able to do whatever she wanted as long as she behaved in class.

As she sat down at her table, for the first time all semester she noticed that she actually sat alone. Not that Penny minded of course, it allowed her to focus on her camera and mess around easier.

The class started and Mr. Wayne shushed the students, "Alright guys listen up. Me and the Build-Tech teacher, Ms. Robyns have decided to team up on a fun project that if all goes well should last for a few weeks at least. So I want you to give a warm welcome to your new classmates for the next little bit!"

Penny sighed, hopefully since it was Mr. Wayne the project would be fun. Or at least, she could be excused since she was already such a good photographer.

The door opened and in stepped Ms. Robyns, presumably, and roughly 13 other kids making the new class size 25.

Penny's eyes lit up as she scanned over the new students and saw Peter among them. How coincidental she thought.

Peter noticed her and smiled as he made his way to take the seat next to her.

"This is crazy! How cool it that our two classes joined up!" He said ecstatically.

"Yeah, I almost don't believe it myself," Penny laughed.

"All right settle, settle," Ms. Robyns calmed the class, "So this project is a very interesting one. We have decided that my tech building class will build a bunch of different cameras that the photography students will then use to take their amazing photos with. While the tech students build the first camera, so the photography kids aren't bored out of their minds waiting, you will need to document with photos the process in which they were built."

"And to make this a little more fun, or hopefully," Mr. Wayne chuckled, "at least once the rolls will be reversed. The tech student will teach the photography student how to build the camera, and the photography student will teach the tech student how to properly take photos! There are a couple of sets of 9 different cameras to be made and taken apart, so this project should last at least a month if you're doing everything correctly." 

Ms. Robyns fluidly picked up where Mr. Wayne left off, "And this will be a choose your own partner project. So once you find who you'll be working with be sure to come up and get the first camera you'll be building. All right class, let's get to it!"

Penny and Peter looked to each other excitedly, this was going to be fun. Peter rushed up to get a dismantled camera and immediately began tinkering.

As Peter sat down with a grin on his face and all the pieces laid out in front of him, Penny quickly snapped a photo. She looked at it and thought it looked great.

Peters hands began to put the intricate pieces together, hardly using the instructions that were provided. Penny snapped a couple more photos before asking, "Woah that's insane dude. How are you doing that?"

"Me and my Uncle Ben used to build a lot before he, uh, before he died. So this is like second nature to me. Besides, cameras aren't that difficult to build, it's just the small pieces that can get irritating," Peter said, a melancholy smile on his face.

Penny felt bad, but she snapped a photo of his moment. It was the real authentic emotion that she always tried to capture.

"Hey man, I heard about that and I wanted to say something, you know repay the favor and all, but then I saw you flip out on Flash. And you know, we weren't all that close- I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you ever really need to talk about it, I'm here for you," Penny said looking anywhere but at Peter. She finally glanced at him and he offered her a sad smile.

"Thanks Pen. I really appreciate that," Was all he said before he went back to work.

The rest of the period flew by and Penny and Peter had a fantastic time, laughing and cursing at each other. The camera was a 1/4 of the way done, and Penny had taken so many photos that she could fill an entire book with them.

The bell shook them from their little bubble and they both exited the class. Peter stopped in his tracks as Liz passed by, only a few feet away from them. Penny nudged him with her elbow with a smirk on her face and Peter flushed red in embarrassment.

After that they parted ways, ready to goof around with each other during lunch.