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ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING
i. THE GOOD LIFE

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   RILEY STARK WAS STARING.

   The feeling of her intense gape was comparable to the sun wrapping its blanket of warmth around his body. Peter Parker could feel Riley Stark's gaze burning into his face. He could picture her big, brown eyes observing his every single move as he penetrated his plastic fork into the food on his styrofoam lunch tray. He knew that the second he looked up to meet Riley's eyes, he would collapse right then and there and explain everything that was on his mind, everything he was feeling in that moment. That seemed to be how much power Riley Stark had over the boy... probably because she was one of Peter's many childhood heroes.

   "Do you wanna talk about it?"

   Peter shook his head.

   Her concerned gaze remained. "Aw, c'mon, Pete," she insisted softly. "Talking about it might make you feel better." He just shook his head, silent like before.

   Ned Leeds approached the duo as Riley spoke. He took a seat beside Peter at the table in the overcrowded school cafeteria. He glanced between the two teenagers he called his closest friends (and, coincidentally, his heroes). His youthful face expressed bewilderment once he sensed the tension between Riley and Peter.

   Hesitant and almost unsure of his own words, Ned asked, "What's... going on...?"

   She continued to stare at Peter, wondering if he would properly respond to his best friend. When he didn't, her gaze shifted to Ned. "Well—"

   "Don't say it," grumblingly interjected Peter. Riley's attention snapped back toward the boy, almost dramatically gasping. This was the first time he had spoken for the past hour and a half, which felt like forever since they had most of their classes together.

   "He speaks!" mocked Riley. When he shook his head and looked back down, she whined, "Come on! He's your best friend and your guy in the chair!"

   "Yeah, I'm your best friend and the guy in the chair!" repeated Ned in agreement.

   "And I'm your babysitter-mentor-second best friend-partner in justice," Riley added.

   "Yeah!"

   Riley and Ned high-fived from across the table with grins on their faces. When Peter continued to give them the silent treatment, Riley sighed. "Fine," she said. She turned to Ned. "There's another meme of Spider-Man."

   "Riley!" whined Peter.

   "Sorry! I had to keep him in the loop!"

   Peter pouted after being exposed. He pointed his plastic fork at Riley. "You know, when you put it like that, it just sounds like I can't take a joke," complained Peter. "I can take jokes! I literally am a joke!"

   Ned tilted his head to the side, taking a bite out of his pizza. "I don't get it. What's the problem?"

   Peter sighed. "The problem is that I'm already a huge meme as Peter Parker," explained the young hero. "Why does Spidey have to be a meme, too?"

   Nodding empathetically, Riley looked down at her phone. The meme had been all over her social media feed all day, and every time she saw it, she couldn't help but giggle. The meme was a picture some civilian had taken of Spider-Man getting caught up in his own webs. It was a fairly new image that came from one of Valor and Spider-Man's countless endeavors.

   Ever since Riley was released from her hospitalization, she and Peter had been spending a lot of their time doing rounds and patrolling Queens. They were usually professionals, but every once in a while, someone would do something silly that would turn into an internet sensation. Of course, the term "internet sensation" should be taken loosely, especially since the victim of the memes would usually be Peter, who was a lesser-known hero in comparison to Riley. The memes of Spider-Man were typically shared with a small group of individuals online, but this time, it had blown up to heights unknown.

   Captions of the image of Spider-Man spread like wildfire. Even Happy had texted in the Stark-Potts family groupchat a few clever captions of his own. Of course, Riley promised herself she'd never show Peter what Happy had to say, but she did get a good laugh out of it.

   "There are memes of Tony and Steve and Thor and all of us circulating the internet, Peter," assured Riley.

   "Oh, yeah?" he challenged. "Where's your meme?"

   "I've been doing this since I was two, so I don't usually slip up. Plus, I'm invisible half the time, so no one sees it when I do," brushed off Riley with her head held high. "I remember when Tony assigned me to "babysit" you, I did a ridiculous amount of research on things that would help me get closer to you, and the biggest thing I found were memes. It's just the current generation's humor! I mean, come on, I literally watched you laugh at your own meme in Chem today."

   "That was before I started trending on Twitter," mumbled Peter, slouching.

   Riley giggled. She knew he'd get over it sooner than later. Her attention shifted back to Ned when he gasped. He had checked out of the conversation long ago to go on his phone. "Oh my God," started Ned, staring at something on his screen.

   The two teenaged superheroes instantly looked to Ned, worried. "What?" asked Riley. She watched Peter move closer to Ned to see what he was looking at, only to burst out into his usual giggles. Now, she was even more curious than before. "What is it?"

   Chuckling to himself, Ned turned his phone to show her. Her eyes widened almost immediately.

   It was an image of Valor with her sleeve on fire (Things like this tended to happen a lot since Riley's powers still tipped out of balance on occasion. Her fight with Rob truly took everything out of her, but now that she was training these newfound abilities more, she was slowly getting back into the swing of having full control), pointing and laughing at Spider-Man being caught in his own web. The picture had been captioned, "That feeling when you're laughing about someone else's problems even though you have just as many, if not more, problems than them."

   "Aw, what!?" Riley cried out. She looked away from the phone and back at her friends. "I'm a meme!?"

   Peter was grinning from ear-to-ear in amusement, happy to not be the odd one out anymore. "You've gotta admit, Ghostie," insisted Peter, "that's pretty good." He nodded at the meme on Ned's phone, still laughing to himself. He mockingly smiled at Riley. "Don't take it so personal!"

   Riley rolled her eyes at the hypocrisy of Peter's comment. "Why I oughta—!" she started. She picked up a grape and her plastic spoon, flinging it at Peter's face.

   "Hey!" Peter yelled. He picked up a grape on his plate and chucked it at her. It bounced off of her forehead, causing Riley to just pick it up and throw it back at him.

   And so, a small fruit war broke out between the two heroes. It was baffling to think that these were two of the people the world depended on the most when it needed saving.

   Riley Stark had to admit—life was great.

   The past five months had been an absolute blur. She hadn't stopped smiling from the moment she returned to school after being released from her hospitalization from the Avengers Headquarters. It took about eight days for Riley to completely heal from the fight against Rob O'Dair, and it took two more for her to maintain stable vitals. Sometimes Riley's powers would tip out of balance, but that was because she was still getting used to her newfound strength. Even after getting cleared to go home and go back to school, Riley ended up missing a few extra days to celebrate her official adoption by Tony Stark and Pepper Potts.

   She wished she could publicly announce the changing of her surname to Stark. The legal documents all said that she was a Stark, but everyone she knew (aside from Peter, Ned, and Aunt May, of course) seemed to be kept in the dark about it. It was hard to keep a secret because of how important being officially adopted meant to her, but she learned to keep it to herself.

   Besides, if everyone were to discover that she was a Stark, the public would learn of her secret and everything would fall apart from there. That was certainly the last thing she needed, especially if she wanted to at least try to temporarily maintain a somewhat normal life.

   "I leave you losers unsupervised for five minutes, and I come back to this," MJ's voice came from beside Riley as she slid into the spot beside her.

   Riley beamed upon seeing MJ. The two had become extremely close over time. Even though MJ didn't want to admit it, she was glad they ended up as close as they were today. It just made going to school every day a bit more tolerable.

   "You're just as much of a loser as we are," pointed out Riley.

   "I never said I wasn't," mused MJ, causing Riley to snort. Riley had always loved MJ's sense of humor. It made her wonder how well a conversation between her and Tony would go.

   Life was fairly standard as far as being a "normal" teenager went. Riley regularly went to school, which meant she hung out with all of her friends whenever she felt like it. Once a week, she would have a family dinner with Pepper and Tony. Sometimes, it would just be restricted to Riley and Pepper or Riley and Tony since the couple never gave themselves a day off. She didn't mind much, though.

   She was still getting used to having actual parents. She was just happy to be their kid. Besides, when she wasn't spending time with Tony and Pepper, she was hanging out with Ned, MJ, and Peter. Mostly Peter. Usually Peter.

   Riley Stark and Peter Parker seemed to always be together nowadays. Peter hadn't realized how close he and Riley were until May put out a plate at dinner for Riley without asking or offering a place at the dinner table. At first, he thought the real Riley was extremely cool because she was an Avenger—one he grew up idolizing; however, he quickly realized that he and Riley got along way better than he was expecting, and vise-versa. Riley and Peter were closer than ever after being attached by the hip for the past five months, especially since they really had nothing to hide from each other anymore.

   Riley and Peter were always doing rounds whenever they didn't have homework. They had even developed a bit of a "good cop, bad cop" routine over the course of the past five months. Riley, despite being human sunshine and usually sweet like candy, nailed the bad cop persona almost perfectly. This scared Peter just a little bit. He knew Black Widow personally trained Valor for years, so it just made him wonder what she was like when she was on the clock for S.H.I.E.L.D.

   Moreover, now that he had gotten to know her, he noticed a lot of things that made Riley such a complex person. She was, of course, incredibly caring and extremely self-sacrificing. She always beat herself up when others around her got hurt because she swore she could prevent any disaster. She didn't care what happened to her if it ensured the safety of others. Although she was mature and serious depending on her environment, Riley was also full of jokes and sarcasm. It was almost too clear that when she was practically raised by Tony.

   She was emotional and sensitive, too, which was a surprise to most people who weren't close to her. She typically put up a wall around herself and shut others out unless it was for personal gain (for example, while "babysitting" Peter, she brought down her wall for the sake of her mission). She wasn't shy like many believed; she was guarded and observant. She struggled with being herself around most people because of this, but that was simply how she was brought up by S.H.I.E.L.D. Riley was simply raised as an agent before a person.

   Still, Peter helped Riley be comfortable with others. She'd made remarkable progress in the past five months, and he was proud of her.

   Riley and Peter spent more time together than anyone else these days. They had gotten closer and closer as each day passed, and somehow, they weren't even close to being tired of one another. Between knowing each other's favorite color and each other's greatest desires, Riley and Peter really couldn't get enough of each other.

   After all, Peter was Riley's first real friend. She wasn't going to screw it up again.

   Riley fully believed that she was finally enjoying life for once. She didn't have to worry about the guilt of killing her parents, which she had finally come to terms with accepting that it was an accident. She didn't have to worry about a murderous robot Tony and Bruce created that wanted to take over the world. She didn't even have to worry about aliens or anything remotely related to them!

   For once, Riley was happily living the good life.

   She just hoped she wouldn't jinx it.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

WELCOME TO ACT TWO!!!!

bitch i've been itching to get this show on the road, and i'm very excited to do so! i'm so sorry this wasn't a super exciting start to the second act, but i really just wanted to give yall some updates on how everyone's doing. i'm also double sorry (is that a thing?) about giving SO MUCH DAMN EXPOSITION ON RILEY!!!

holy shit she's just SUCH a complex character, and i really wanna exaggerate that!! so again i'm so sorry about all the extra shit about riley and her personality, but it's IMPORTANT TO ME THAT EVERYONE KNOWS THESE THINGS ABOUT HER!!! it's all important to the overall book and understanding riley not as a character, but as a person. idk why i make this shit so hard on myself lmfao, i just love seeing how far i can develop a character and see how real i can make them.

A N Y W A Y S

i made some graphics for your entertainment <3 pls don't roast me too hard. also if u steal these, i will step on u. it won't be nice. don't be a dick.