Something From Nothing

Chapter 4 - High School Sucks.

Peter never considered how strange it would be, going to school for the first time. But he soon found out.

School was weird.

He had been at midtown for almost a year now and mostly kept to himself, always observing. He of course made some 'friends'. Ned Leeds and Michelle Jones.

To be fair to them, they seem like good people, and Peter truly does like them. But he doesn't really trust them. He doubts he ever truly will. He knows they are good people, he was trained to read people after all. But they will never know the real him. They wouldn't understand. So he will keep up his facade around them, never really let them in. They cant betray him that way.

But after months of school he has found that the workload is ridiculously light, although he supposes thats just to him given how everyone else constantly complains that its too much. Anyhow, he started taking college classes online at MIT, he is currently taking 5 college courses as well as attending high school, and working a part time job and still finds himself with a lot of free time.

But with that time he has come up with a plan. And step one of that plan is graduate high school. He knows his original plan was to be a normal child, but he has since decided to be a normal child prodigy instead. More fun.

Okay honestly he was just tired or being surrounded by stupid hormonal teens all of the time. He may be patient, but even he is getting tired of school. Besides, it is hell on his enhanced senses.

He has also been making extra money. On top of his job at the coffee shop, he has began writing fantasy novels. He decided it was a quick way to make money while remaining anonymous to the public. He is using Tom Holland as a pen name. Well he actually made it an entire alias...with a backstory, but that was mainly because he was bored.

Tom Holland, a 23 year old British writer from London. He honestly just finds the British accent kind of amusing. But hey.

He has already released one novel and has plans to release two more. Surprisingly he managed to make $250,000 with the first book alone and is now considered a best selling author. He could almost laugh at that.

He had read a lot of books while with Hydra. But never fantasy books. He was allowed to read but only to learn. Not for enjoyment. No surprise there though. But after he got out he began to spend a lot of time at the library and subsequently discovered the joy of books.

He enjoys books, because for once he can be someone else. Live their lives or whatever. He really loved the Divergent trilogy. He kind of felt connected to the characters. Because in a lot of ways he could relate. Or at least he knows what its like to fight for your life at a young age while people try to make you into killing machines, yet somehow being immune to all of their attempts at mind control.

Huh. Remarkably accurate actually.

But that isn't the point. The point is he realised that he could use it as an opportunity to make money, and he needs money before he can take the fight to Hydra. But he will take the fight to hydra. One way or another.

Now that he had some money though he is focusing on building what he needs. And setting up safe houses and such. He managed to find a run old warehouse just outside of Queens and bought it. He didn't care that the building was kind of crappy. It was a good starting point. That's all that mattered. He managed to fix the place up pretty good too. Overall it cost him only $50,000 since he did most of the work on it himself but he managed to make the place a fully secure and very decent home with a training area and a state of the art fully functional lab.

He mainly built everything in the lab himself. It was easy enough and kept him busy. He made interactive holographic projectors as well as most of the lab equipment. He also built something he likes to call 'web shooters' and designed 'webbing' to shoot from it.

The idea with that was that he never be unarmed. It was also very useful for grabbing things from across the room when he was too focused to get up. He also discovered it was an excellent mode of transportation but he tends not to use it as that would just draw unwanted attention.

He even built his own AI, based off of Tony Stark's J.A.R.V.I.S. He named her KAREN. He had discovered teenage humour and secretly found it amusing. Of course most of what he does or thinks is secret, but lets not dwell on that right now.

He had good fun programming her,also he kind of likes that he has someone that won't betray his trust. And it's kind of nice not being alone all of the time but he would never admit that out loud. Her coding is already more advanced than Starks AI. He can't help but feel smug about that.

He also created another AI, MAY. He programmed her into a phone he built and now she can take and make calls to the school whenever he needs. It saved him a lot of problems after the principal tried to call her about an 'altercation' with Flash.

Ah yes Flash, the school bully. He is only even in that school because of his parents money, which he thinks makes him better than everyone else. Peter loathed Flash. Not because of his bullying, lorn knows he has had worse. A lot worse.

No, peter hated him because he lives such a sheltered life and is completely ignorant to other people. Peter doesn't care what flash does to him. In fact, he lets him do it. It stops him from picking on somebody who cant take it.

Of course Peter pretends that Flash's words hurt him and plays the weak nerdy teen everyone thinks he is. But really he just resents that this kid has had it so much easier than him. Easier than most normal people. But still has the gall to deliberately try to make their lives harder. Yeah Peter hates Flash.

Actually, he just hates school. Good thing he is gonna graduate in a couple months. Besides he doesn't want to be tied down with school when he goes after HYDRA. Not to mention he wouldn't even be wasting his time going to school at all if he didn't need to lay low. Well that and the qualifications. And the chance to have something at least close to a normal life.

But either way...high school sucks.