Chapter 8 — Noise in the Hallway
I hadn't intended to talk to Gwen.
That was the irritating part.
I was standing near the lockers after chemistry, pretending to care about the peeling safety posters on the wall, when she spoke first—something minor, something forgettable about the assignment. I answered. She smiled. That was the entire exchange.
Nothing strategic.
Nothing emotional.
Nothing worth noticing.
Unfortunately, someone noticed anyway.
Flash Thompson always entered a room like he thought gravity worked differently for him. Loud steps. Shoulders too wide. Confidence built on the assumption that no one would challenge it.
He stopped too close.
"You got a problem?" he said.
I turned slowly.
"No," I replied.
That should have ended it.
It didn't.
Posturing
Flash laughed, but there was no humor in it. Only territory. He glanced at Gwen, then back at me.
"Thought so," he said. "So maybe back off."
Gwen looked uncomfortable now. She stepped away without saying anything. Smart decision.
I watched Flash carefully—not because I was intimidated, but because his physiology was already changing. Jaw tight. Shoulders rising. Breath shallow.
He had already decided to escalate.
People like him didn't need reasons. They needed permission—from themselves.
I didn't give it.
I didn't apologize.
I didn't explain.
I didn't leave.
I simply stood there.
That bothered him more than anything else.
The First Move
He shoved me.
Hard enough to be noticed. Not hard enough to be effective.
The hallway went quiet in that special way it always did when violence threatened to break routine. Lockers slammed shut down the hall. Someone whispered my name. Someone else whispered his.
I adjusted my stance without thinking.
Flash grinned.
"There we go," he said. "Knew you'd crack."
That was his mistake.
I hadn't cracked.
He had.
I moved
fast.
Decisively.
What followed lasted only seconds, though it felt longer to everyone watching. Flash's confidence colllapsde
I Puncd him in his jaw then slid under his feet and kicks him on his head
He stepd back in pain bit he punchd me
Bad move i said codly
I uppercut his chin the grabd his head and slamd it multiple times on a locket till he was bleeding
I didn't shout.
Didn't threaten.
Didn't posture.
I ended it.
By the time the noise returned to the hallway—voices, gasps, someone yelling for a teacher—Flash was no longer standing. He was disoriented, breath ragged, eyes unfocused.
A locker door rattled once, then went still.
Silence followed.
Aftermath
I stepped back.
Not because I needed distance.
Because the situation was finished.
Flash didn't get up. Not immediately. His friends hovered uselessly, unsure whether to help or retreat. No one wanted to be next.
To face me
I looked down at him.
Nothing.
No satisfaction.
No anger.
No regret.
Just confirmation.
He had applied pressure.
The system had responded.
The Crowd
Someone shouted, "What the hell?!"
A teacher's voice echoed from the far end of the hall.
Students backed away from me without realizing they were doing it. Their eyes were wide, their expressions unsure—trying to reconcile what they'd just seen with what they thought they knew.
I was still just the quiet transfer student.
But not anymore.
Reputations didn't need time.
They needed witnesses.
Gwen
I noticed Gwen only when she spoke.
"Jake…"
Her voice was unsteady.
I turned toward her.
She wasn't afraid of me—not exactly. But something had shifted behind her eyes. Curiosity mixed with caution. The realization that people were not always what they presented.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
I considered the question.
"Yes," I said.
It was the truth.
Authority Arrives
A teacher reached us first, then another. Someone knelt beside Flash, asking questions he couldn't answer yet. Another adult looked at me with the familiar expression of someone trying to regain control of a system that had already failed.
"What happened?" one of them demanded.
Flash's friends started talking all at once.
I didn't.
When the teacher looked at me again, I spoke calmly.
"He pushed me," I said. "I responded."
WWithinwhat my parens teachd me
That was all.
No embellishment.
No justification.
Facts only.
Internal State: Jake
Heart rate normal.
Breathing steady.
Mind clear.
This wasn't loss of control.
This was efficiency.
Flash had acted according to his nature.
I had acted according to mine.
There was no moral equation to solve.
Consequences (Pending)
They escorted me away from the hallway.
Not forcefully.
Carefully.
As if I might break something else.
I walked with them willingly.
Suspension. Detention. Expulsion.
All possible.
All irrelevant.
Schools were systems.
Systems adapted—or removed anomalies.
Either outcome served me.
One Last Observation
As we passed the lockers, I glanced back once.
Flash was sitting up now, supported by a teacher. He lookt angry at me
But scared to
That would last longer.
Status Update
Cover identity: Compromised
Reputation: Altered
Flash Thompson: Neutralized
Gwen Stacy: Aware
School system: Reacting
Emotional state: Unchanged
Making friends with peter parker (aka spiderman)
Jake remains emotionally muted, analytical, and controlled.
— Proximity
Friendship is a strange construct.
It's not built on honesty, or trust, or shared values—not at first. It's built on repetition. Proximity. Predictability. Two variables occupying the same space often enough that the system decides to label the interaction.
I understood that long before I decided to approach Peter Parker.
After the incident with Flash, the school changed its behavior toward me. Teachers watched more closely. Students spoke less freely. Conversations paused when I entered rooms. My presence had acquired weight.
Peter noticed.
Not because he was observant in the social sense—but because he was sensitive to disruptions in systems. And I was one.
The First Conversation
It happened in physics.
We were assigned lab partners.
Not by choice.
By alphabetical coincidence.
Parker.
Then me.
He hesitated when he saw the list, like he was considering requesting a change and then rejecting the idea halfway through forming it. That indecision told me more than his posture ever could.
We sat together in silence at first.
The equipment lay untouched between us. Wires, sensors, components. Familiar shapes. Comfortable shapes.
I began assembling the apparatus without asking.
Not rudely.
Efficiently.
Peter watched for a moment, then blinked.
"Oh—uh—you're good at this," he said.
"Yes," I replied.
That was enough.
He smiled awkwardly and began helping, his hands moving with practiced ease. No wasted motion. No uncertainty. His brain operated faster than his mouth.
Interesting.
Parallel Minds
We worked without speaking for several minutes.
That alone put us in a minority.
Most people filled silence with noise, as if quiet exposed something fragile inside them. Peter didn't. He focused. Adjusted. Corrected. Improved.
I made a deliberate mistake—small, inconsequential.
He noticed immediately.
"Wait—if you connect that there, the output's going to skew," he said, gentle but confident.
I corrected it.
"Good catch," I said.
He flushed slightly.
Validation mattered to him.
Good to know.
Establishing Pattern
After that day, it became routine.
We sat together in physics. Then chemistry. Sometimes in math. Not because we planned it—but because the system kept pairing us. Teachers noticed efficiency and reinforced it.
People mistook compatibility for friendship.
They weren't wrong.
But they didn't understand the mechanism.
Peter talked when nervous. About science. About ideas. About theories he hadn't fully tested yet. I listened—not politely, but attentively. He was sharp. Sharper than most adults I'd met.
He never asked about Flash.
I appreciated that.
The Cafeteria Experiment
One afternoon, I sat across from him at lunch.
He froze mid-bite.
"Oh. Uh. Hey," he said.
"Hello," I replied.
He glanced around, clearly aware of the social implications. Sitting with me carried consequences now. I could see him calculating them.
He stayed anyway.
That decision mattered.
We ate in silence at first.
Then he spoke.
"You moved here recently, right?"
"Yes."
"From where?"
"Far enough away that it doesn't matter."
He nodded, accepting the non-answer with surprising ease.
That told me something else.
He didn't pry.
He adapted.
Peter Parker, Unmasked (Metaphorically)
Peter was not confident—but he wasn't weak.
He doubted himself constantly, but never his ideas. He apologized for existing, but never for being right. He cared deeply, almost painfully, about outcomes he couldn't control.
A mind like his was a dangerous thing in the wrong context.
Or the right one.
He laughed quietly at his own jokes. He tried to hide his intelligence and failed in subtle ways. He was lonely without being isolated.
I recognized the pattern.
I had once been something like him.
Before emotion became inefficient.
Testing Trust
Trust is not given.
It's measured.
One afternoon, I showed him something small—a personal project. Not the drone. Not anything illegal or dangerous. Just a compact mechanical prototype I'd been working on, stripped of its more… creative features.
His eyes lit up instantly.
"You built this?" he asked.
"Yes."
"That's—Jake, this is really clever."
No jealousy.
No suspicion.
Just genuine admiration.
I noted the response carefully.
He didn't ask how I'd built it.
He asked why.
That was rare.
Conversation Without Masks
Weeks passed.
We studied together. Walked between classes. Talked about science, ethics, responsibility—always theoretically. Always abstractly.
He believed power carried obligation.
I believed power carried inevitability.
We didn't argue.
We compared hypotheses.
He didn't know what I was.
I didn't know what he would become.
But something in the space between us felt… stable.
That surprised me.
The Spider, Still Absent
The spider hadn't appeared yet.
That irritated me.
But it also clarified something.
I was no longer watching Peter only as a target.
He had become… relevant.
Not emotionally.
Functionally.
A mind like his could change trajectories. Enhance systems. Solve problems I hadn't yet optimized.
I didn't need his powers.
I needed his intellect.
The spider could wait.
A Quiet Moment
One evening, we sat on the school steps after an academic club meeting neither of us technically belonged to.
The sun was low. The campus mostly empty.
Peter stared at the sky.
"Do you ever feel like things are… about to change?" he asked.
"Yes," I said.
He smiled faintly.
"Guess that's just life."
I didn't correct him.
Some truths were better discovered firsthand.
Internal State: Jake
No attachment detected.
No emotional dependency.
No hesitation.
But—
Increased tolerance for presence.
Sustained interest in subject.
Reduced urge to isolate.
An anomaly.
I logged it mentally.
The Beginning of Alignment
Peter trusted me.
Not completely.
Not blindly.
But enough.
He shared ideas. Concerns. Hopes. Doubts.
I shared none of those.
But I shared attention.
That was more valuable.
End State
Whatever the universe had planned for Peter Parker—spider or not—he was no longer alone in it.
And neither was I.
Not because I needed companionship.
But because proximity creates leverage.
And leverage changes outcomes.
Status Update
Relationship: Peter Parker — Established
Trust level: Moderate
Spider event: Pending
Emotional deviation: Minimal but noted
Risk: Controlled