Today was Friday, and there wasn’t much time left before our superhero debut.
Unfortunately, that didn’t mean school was canceled.
Attending classes wasn’t particularly difficult, though it did take up a decent amount of time.
I wasn’t about to complain.
Being a superhero wasn’t going to put food on the table.
Peter Parker was a perfect example of that.
Despite having a brilliant mind, he had always lived on the verge of poverty.
I needed to find a balance between my ordinary life and my activities as a hero.
My grades had skyrocketed, and I imagine quite a few people connected it to my relationship with Penny.
It was hard to blame them.
A guy who had consistently slacked off in school suddenly started dating the best student in the entire school and became practically an honor student himself.
The conclusion practically drew itself.
Fortunately, neither of us cared.
Penny knew that wasn’t the reason, and everyone else’s opinion was irrelevant.
To be perfectly honest, people had said much nastier things about her in the past.
The troublemakers I’d initially been worried about never caused any problems either.
I couldn’t say for certain why.
Maybe it was enough that they’d been told I was only dating Penny so she could help me with my studies.
Or maybe it was because Penny and I were practically inseparable whenever we were at school.
People here didn’t generally fight in front of boys.
Besides, they might have been afraid that I’d complain to the teachers.
In this world, there was nothing shameful about a guy being a snitch.
Still, those conclusions turned out to be a little premature.
I let my guard down, and trouble didn’t take long to find me.
I was sitting in the school cafeteria, chatting with a couple of Sam’s friends.
I couldn’t say I was enjoying myself.
The topics local guys liked to discuss were, to put it mildly, not exactly my thing: fashion, cosmetics, and girls.
The first two were completely foreign territory to me.
As for girls, though, I was always happy to talk about them.
Unfortunately, the conversation here wasn’t about tits and asses, or even about how my Judy wouldn’t let me go drinking with the guys.
No, they were discussing the size of a woman’s wallet and other material benefits.
A woman’s beauty and personality came in second place, or even third.
Penny wasn’t with me.
After class, her teacher had kept her behind to discuss some kind of project.
She’d told me not to wait for her.
My paranoia about the bullies had eased somewhat over the past few weeks, and I hadn’t seen any reason to insist.
That turned out to be a mistake.
The rumor that Penelope Parker had gotten into a fight with Fleur Thompson seemed to come out of nowhere, and it spread through the cafeteria in no time.
There was no way I could ignore that.
The word “fight” caught me off guard.
Penny had never been the type to fight.
Honestly, she had never even tried to stand up for herself.
Thompson, for all her faults, rarely resorted to outright physical violence either.
Tripping someone, ruining their homework, or stuffing something disgusting into their locker?
Sure, she’d do that.
For the most part, people were simply too afraid of her to start a fight.
She was the strongest girl in school, after all, and she had an entire cheerleading squad backing her up.
Not many people had the guts to challenge someone with that kind of influence.
Still, there were always a few brave idiots, even if they were rare.
So when I heard there had been an actual fight, I immediately worried that Penny had simply been jumped.
I rushed off to find her, cursing myself for letting my guard down.
My fears disappeared once I found out where the two fighters had been taken.
They’d been sent to the principal’s office, so I headed there immediately.
As soon as I approached, the door opened and Thompson stepped out.
She looked absolutely terrible.
A black eye was already beginning to form, and she was generally looking pretty battered.
She’d clearly taken a serious beating.
That reassured me somewhat.
If Penny had finally decided to stand up for herself, then there was no way a group of bullies could threaten her.
Fleur didn’t pay any attention to me.
She simply lowered her head and trudged away.
I couldn’t help wondering what she was feeling right now.
She’d always considered herself the predator and Penny the prey.
What did a wolf feel when the rabbit stopped running and hiding, then knocked it flat on its back?
Served her right.
She deserved it.
Penny didn’t come out of the principal’s office right away.
Class had already started, and the hallway was fairly quiet, so I could hear what they were talking about.
There wasn’t anything particularly interesting.
Surprisingly, the principal wasn’t angry.
She seemed more disappointed that such a promising student had resorted to physical violence.
Parker responded with the usual things people said in situations like this.
She apologized and promised it wouldn’t happen again.
Penny finally came out about ten minutes later.
I’d wisely stepped to the side so I wouldn’t be visible from inside the office.
Skipping class while standing directly outside the principal’s office would already have been unbelievably stupid.
Getting caught doing it would be even worse.
Technically, we should have gone back to class.
Neither of us looked particularly interested in doing that, though.
Penny was clearly surprised to see me, but she wisely kept quiet.
What had she expected?
After hearing that my girlfriend had been involved in a fight, was I really supposed to calmly walk into my next class?
Either way, we needed to talk.
I took her hand and led her toward somewhere quiet.
“All right, tell me what happened,” I said once we’d found a secluded spot where no one would bother us.
Penny looked at me with a complicated mixture of emotions on her face.
Whatever had happened, it had clearly gotten to her.
“She told me to stay away from you.”
“What?”
I was genuinely stunned by the sheer audacity.
Of course, I’d expected something like this myself, but that didn’t make it any less surprising.
I simply wasn’t used to girls fighting over me.
And why would Thompson even want me?
Sure, men were in short supply here, but she wasn’t exactly poor.
There were plenty of people interested in her.
“Apparently, several of her friends have their eyes on you, so she decided to help them with their love lives,” Parker sighed.
“You refused, and they started a fight?”
“Well… not exactly.”
She shifted awkwardly, as if she wasn’t sure whether she should tell me everything.
“They said all sorts of things. That I was ugly and boring, that you’re only dating me because of my grades, and that I’m…”
She hesitated.
“Poor.”
That last word was obviously the hardest for her to say.
“Penny, I told you…”
“I remember what you said,” Parker interrupted, throwing up her hands.
“And I believe you were being sincere. But that doesn’t make me feel any better, you know?”
“How am I supposed to feel like a woman when I can’t even take my boyfriend on a proper date?”
“Your understanding just makes it worse. If you’d yelled at me and called me useless, maybe I’d actually feel better about myself. Instead, you act as though everything is perfectly normal.”
I listened without interrupting.
She clearly had a lot bottled up inside, so the least I could do was let her get it all out.
It wasn’t hard to see that her family’s financial situation embarrassed her.
I’d tried to make her understand that it didn’t bother me, and I’d assumed that would be enough.
Obviously, I’d been wrong.
“Listen.”
I stepped closer until there was barely any distance between us, forcing her to look me in the eyes.
“You say you can’t provide for me, but show me a single student in this school who supports themselves. Every one of us lives off our parents or relatives.”
“If your family isn’t rich, that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“You have a brilliant mind. If you use it properly, you’ll become very, very wealthy someday. And that money will be yours, and no one else’s.”
“Do you understand?”
“I’m completely satisfied with the relationship we have right now. If you’re satisfied with it too, then nobody has the right to tell us that we can’t be together.”
“Certainly not Thompson and her little gang.”
“You’re such a good person.”
Penny smiled and wrapped her arms around me.
Apparently, my little speech had managed to cheer her up after all.
“I try.”
I returned her embrace.
“So, what happened next?”
“What else could happen?”
The girl sighed heavily.
“I stood there listening to all of it, and eventually I just snapped.”
“You know, I could have put her in her place a long time ago. Even before I got my powers.”
“I know where she keeps her hairspray. It would’ve been ridiculously easy to put something nasty in it and make half her hair fall out.”
“And there are plenty of other ways I could have made her life miserable.”
“But I always held myself back. I kept telling myself that I was better than that, that I wouldn’t stoop to her level.”
“Aunt Benny always says that with great power comes great responsibility.”
“I’ve always tried to live by that.”
“But now…”
Oh, great.
The last thing I needed was for her to start feeling guilty about finally putting those bullies in their place.
“I doubt your aunt meant that you should just sit there and put up with harassment.”
“She’s right that power comes with responsibility, but that doesn’t mean you have to let people treat you however they want.”
I gently tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear.
“I’m glad you stood up for yourself.”
“Are you going to have any problems because of this?”
“No.”
Penny shook her head.
“Thompson is a horrible person, but she’s not a snitch. So it’ll end with a reprimand from the principal.”
That’s good.
It was also a relief that Parker had handled the situation herself.
Honestly, I’d had a hard time figuring out how to deal with the bullying without putting her in an awkward position.
Now they’d think twice before messing with her again.
Thompson would probably try to get revenge sooner or later, but by then, I hoped I’d have convinced Penny that standing up for herself wasn’t a crime.
“Come on.”
I pulled her out of the little corner where we’d been talking.
“Where are we going?”
“Let’s go for a walk. I don’t feel like going back to class, and skipping one lesson won’t hurt us.”