Of course Flash was the only one who could see through Parker's stupid facade. [He can't help but snort bitterly at the irony, because he knows who really has the facade.]
Smart? Of course not. [Of course he's smart. He's Parker.] Parker just has a tendency to get lucky with the most stupidest of answers. Who even knows anything about the atomic structure of Gallium? And yeah, Flash is still faster than him at answering questions. Right or wrong, it's the one constant he's determined to keep.
Parker's still the pathetic nerd who plays with Legos with his equally stupid sidekick. He's the one who's wearing the hand-me-down sweaters, and those disgusting t-shirts that look like they've been dragged through mud half the time. The rest of the shirts are filled with nerdy scientific facts that he can't help but mentally cringe every time he sees them. [His own life is full of suits and custom-designed clothing, clothing for a puppet on strings or for a son of a wealthy businessman.]
And those wimpy glares, oh, those are just gold. Parker can always try to glare at him every time Flash tries to help him understand, but it just fails, and Flash always mentally ends up on the ground in tears of laughter. Parker just accomplishes to look like a baby (ugly) chipmunk trying to snarl at him, the king of the school. [A king with nothing at all.]
He's the idiot who ditched his girlfriend. Parker, the nobody without a social life. The person who actually has to fake an internship to be interesting.
Flash's the one with the money. The brains. The girls. The everything. [If only everything came in a box of huddled up figures at 3 AM in the morning trying to count all the people who actually cared about him.] What is Parker exactly?
Idiotic? Check.
Horrible at fashion? Double check.
But terrifying? Parker wouldn't know terrifying if it slapped him around the head.
"What are those? Star War Lego pieces?"
Flash can't help but snort at the plastic figurines peeking out of Parker's ratty coat jacket. "Are you still that much of baby?" [The same words echo back in his head in his father's voice.]
Parker just looks at him and shakes his head, before turning his back and striding out. [But there's just a hint of knowing that Flash can't stand, because it has to be Parker who would realize, and all he wants to do is slap that knowing glint off his eyes.] Of course Parker would just walk away from him like that. Always the loser, always the coward. [Always the person who would notice the glittery array of masks in his arsenal.]
Flash turns his attention to Leeds, who's still typing away furiously at his trashy phone. They're still trying to ignore his majestic presence [majestic, hah], which he finds quite annoying, but of course he doesn't care. Both of them are nerds. Their opinions don't matter as much as his own, because he owns this world. [He can't help feel like the ignored little boy again, which feels so familiar, it's like a second skin.]
Flash brushes past Leeds forcefully [and maybe it was a tad too forcefully] as he walks out of the hallway, and the next thing he knows, Leeds is sprawled on the ground. His phone is four feet away, lying faceup with a cracked screen.
He lets the little grin curl up at the side of his mouth [like the sadistic bastard he is], letting the waves of awe [disgust] wash over him from the watching bystanders.
No one messes with the Flash.
"Flash."
He whirls around. It's Parker again. But something's different this time. And it surprises Flash, because when did Parker decide to go all ninja at him? What happened to the "I'm going to walk away because I'm a coward" scene? [His heart sinks, but it shouldn't, because he should be glad that Parker isn't going to deal with him anymore.]
Parker's eyes are stone cold. His mouth is no longer still curled up in his typical idiotic smile, flat and foreboding. He actually looks slightly… menacing. Especially considering the fact that he isn't chattering his mouth away like he always does about something that isn't worth listening to.
It doesn't help that Flash sees the curled fists at his side, like he's trying to restrain himself from socking someone in the stomach. But at least he knows his place in the social ranking of the school, because he doesn't move yet. [Sometimes Flash has to wonder how messed he is to let things go so far with this act.]
But not that much of course. Parker is Parker, and if he decides to just use his creepy staring powers to make Flash uncomfortable, it's not going to work. So he stares back stubbornly at Parker's stupid eyes that aren't very terrifying at all.
Parker lets out a tight-lipped smile. "You don't want to do this. Trust me on this one."
When did his annoying squeaky voice get so emotionless?
Okay, Flash might be slightly wrong.
He is a tiny bit terrified.
So when Parker suddenly steps forward, he does not let out an embarrassingly high squeak, because his mouth was closed the whole entire time. Then he hightails it out of the hallway, out of the wide-eyed witnesses, and the not-terrifying Parker staring at him, because of course Flash is nice enough to let him get the win.
Both Parker and Leeds are just cowards. Flash bets that Parker did some sort of eye-surgery to get that effect, because that isn't natural at all. And it's just so Parker that he actually has to cheat and glaring at Flash to get a fake win, because Flash isn't shaken up at all.
But he has to grudgingly admit, that was an okay attempt to try to scare him away. [He spends the night counting with one less person who would care.]
The next day, Flash hears the incredulous whispers and feels the judging gazes of the people around him as he walks to class. He smirks, because he's still on top of the world, and they've finally realized how kind and caring he is for letting Parker get the victory.
Until he realizes what the whispers are about.
They actually have the absolute nerve to trash-talk him [which is well deserved], with a sort of hero-worship to Parker that he cannot naturally have. How much money is Parker even paying them to do that sort of thing?
There's also a brief whisper about Leeds getting a new phone,worth thousands of dollars, that was anonymously shipped to him in the middle of the night.
That definitely must be Parker, paying Leeds to stay friends with him even longer. [It couldn't be the rich brat who paid for the phone, because said rich brat doesn't have a heart.]
Unbelievable.
He saunters off to class, because he's the only one who's smart enough to realize the stupidity of the other students and know who's the true Parker behind his mask of fake caring. [He wonders how far this is going to go before he snaps.]
He gets a letter late at night that day. It doesn't have the inscribed symbol that his father's letter always contains, which is pretty strange, because no one else has ever sent him a letter. He's just too intimidating for anyone to straight up mail him, because he's the top dog of the school. Unless it's a love letter of course, because he obviously gets a ton of those. [Yeah right.]
He peels open the flap, and gently slides out the letter.
Dear Flash,
I just wanted to thank you for buying Ned the phone. He's been ecstatic about the new functions, (something about an interface for real hacking?) and it was pretty cool of you do get him a new device, although you shouldn't have touched my friend in the first place.
I've been around Mister Stark long enough to realize what you're trying to do, and really, it doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't work, and you end up with nobody instead of just trying to guard against fake friends.
But still, don't push Ned ever again. That was completely uncalled for. But I just want to let you know, you don't have to walk alone for this.
Peter
Flash can't help but snicker because seriously, this is one of Parker's most pathetic attempts to get attention. Does he really expect Flash to be gullible enough to believe that he actually meets with the Tony Stark?
A letter describing how awesome he was would be much better than this field of horse crap. [Although Flash still keeps the letter under his bed.]
There's a lot of stories out there where Flash's just a jerk with no background, and that didn't sit well with me, so here you go. Hope you enjoy!