Peter never knew just how complicated high school was going to be. Everything you saw on TV and in movies was relevant, yes, but it didn't quite cover all of the conflicting feelings on the subject. Yes, it was scary. It was nerve-wracking really. It was full of beautiful girls - like Liz - who distracted you at every turn. Then it's full of fat mouthed bullies that don't know what's coming to them in their sad, sad futures. That was all to say without mentioning the drama and conflict going on behind the scenes, pressure from parents - or in Peter's case, his aunt.

It's not that being in high school was just terrifying - but when you'd been through all he'd been through, it was boring. That was the scariest thing about it. Perhaps he never let his feelings bubble to the surface, but inside he couldn't help thinking about just how much else he wanted out of his life, out of this bubble full of cliques and locker room scuffles. He had fought the Avengers - he still couldn't believe it himself. He had been evaluated by Tony Stark's people. He had a costume designed for him. He had training. He faced off with Captain America.

His dreams were coming true, he was becoming a real superhero and he couldn't tell anyone. Stark tried to relate to him but always missed the mark. Peter was alone in his experiences. He had no one to tell about just how isolating it was to get everything you wanted and then be expected to go back to a life where all you looked forward to was running away. He scribbled furiously into his notebook during physics, trying his best to drown out the four walls around him. He tried to ignore the teacher berating the football players in the back and the girls painting their nails in front of him. He drew himself again, reimagining Spider-Man in an image that maybe he would be able to stomach.

He didn't think that going back to his old life would feel quite so green. High school life was nothing like the real world. Out there, he was a hero. How was he supposed to go back? He couldn't understand why he had to go through with returning, why Stark couldn't find a way around it for him. All Tony would talk about was the value of enjoying your youth while it lasted but Peter didn't think he had anything to enjoy.

"Parker, stop doodling," He heard his teacher quip over his head. He stopped immediately, slowly snaking his arm behind him and ignoring the chuckles from his classmates. Peter wasn't one to think he was above anybody, no, but he was over it. Over it was just the best way for him to say it. He was tired of being alone and feeling felt like no one except his best friend Ned could understand him. Ned was a sore subject too. Peter was grappling with whether to tell him his secret. Really, the only person stopping him was Tony Stark, and Peter knew he wasn't going to fight him on that point. He heard a snort from next to him and saw Michelle just as she turned away from his sketchbook, returning to her reading.

"Got a problem with superheroes?" He asked as bored as she looked. She shrugged, continuing to read her book.

"Spider-Man is cool," she breathed out, uninterested in pursuing the conversation further. Though her words had no investment in them, they were enough to make him smile briefly. He wished he'd had a moment to ask something but he knew it wasn't worth it with Michelle. No one could really call her out from her reading.

Peter had this problem with staring. He realized this when he saw her look him in the eyes just moments later. He had been thinking about the look of her, how exhausted she seemed as she smiled into her book, when she caught him. She raised an eyebrow, as if ready to take offense to whatever insult he looked like he had been gearing to send her way. He knew she was quite used to them. Occasionally throughout the year, he'd hear guys give passive notes about her looks. The one time Peter tried to jump in to her defense, she'd yelled at him, so he knew better than to try and save her. Now though he was tempted to apologize because he knew she was expecting the worst of comments.

"Sorry, I was trying to read over your shoulder," He lied. He used to be a terrible liar, but habits build steady hands. She brightened at that, like hearing about someone taking an interest in her books was a radical idea she could get behind.

The school bell interrupted them. Peter had to say he regretted that a bit. He almost never had a chance to connect with Michelle and it would have been nice to connect to one other person at this school. He didn't know why but the girl always made him curious. She seemed like a very decent kind of person. He didn't know much about her despite their years at school but something in the way she acted was particularly confusing to him in a way he wanted to solve. Perhaps his interest stemmed in that she was just about the only other person at this school who looked as tired and bored as he felt all the time.

"See ya," She mumbled as she picked up her books and walked the other way. He was swiftly reminded they couldn't be friends, because she never really liked him. She tolerated him and Ned more than the other kids at this school, but never by much.

Lunch was its usual routine with Ned. Ned was talking all about his new Captain America comics and Peter had to admit even he found them super interesting. Meeting the real thing is really no form of satisfaction when you're a fanboy. He tried to withhold his own personal gut wrench at knowing the events passed between Captain and Tony. He'd heard the rumors while he was at the Avengers Institute. Looking at Ned as he grinned at the illustrations, Peter wondered about what kind of joy he'd get out of telling his best friend the truth about his summer.

Michelle sat alone at the table next to them again. It was where she always sat. Occasionally the table would be full when the cafeteria was overflowing with people, and on those days, Peter and Ned would sit with her too. However, the cafeteria was bare, and that gave her the time she needed to seclude herself into a cave of hardcover books. Peter didn't know what had possessed him to interrupt her, but he found himself suddenly standing up and walking to her.

"Hey, so," He started lamely, already forgetting what he'd had to say. She was staring at him expectantly, sipping her school-supplied chocolate milk. Though he'd seen her sit down minutes ago, he noticed all the food was already gone from her tray. She must have eaten fast. "What do you like about Spider-Man?" he asked lamely.

"I think the general concept of any man being able to swing from a string attached to buildings is pretty impressive," She answered briefly, clearly still wondering what he was doing there. To make matters worse, he couldn't stop himself.

"Yeah, I guess," he tried, looking again to her tray. "Do you want my food? I'm not going to finish it. My Aunt May made me a sandwich-" he was talking too much and it was so hard to stop. She looked at him, as though debating something.

"Sure, I'll take it," she said, a hint of a question in her acceptance. He picked up the food from the tray in front of Ned's own, and he collected it in his hands before bringing it over to her, carefully putting each individual item in the right tray slot.

"Enjoy." Peter asked himself very sternly in his mind just what he thought he was doing. The entire day, he felt like he'd been overthinking everything. Knowing that Michelle thought Spider-Man was cool provided a kind of self-indulgent distraction that he needed. He didn't want to keep thinking about secrets. He wanted to talk about Spider-Man. And yet, having had this realization he turned away from her and went back to Ned who was looking as confused as Peter felt.

Peter had to find a better grip on this secret. At this rate, he was doing some desperate things just to get distracted.

It took everything in Peter to resist approaching Tony Stark again. It was easy enough to get on the roof of his tower. That was one way the teen could always outsmart the billionaire. Tony often used him as a way to test his security mechanisms and Peter was still outperforming his inventions when it came to home security.

Peter knew he couldn't keep running to Tony with his problems though.

Deciding perhaps he could let off some steam, he broke one of Tony's rules for him. He quietly locked his bedroom door and slipped his limbs into his costume, tossing himself out of the window and escaping into the night. Uptown, his best bet was watching over the neighborhood and hoping something would happen. He knew if he headed downtown, he was a lot more likely to find something to do.

Crawling by a strip mall, he arrived just in time to watch men running. Where there was once a glass storefront display, the shattered glass was sign enough of what had happened and he took off in the direction of the men running away. Before long, there were 4 culprits tied to an alley wall by his net and police sirens in the distance as he flew his way back, knowing no one was around. He saw jewels strewn along the ground in random places from where the thieves had dropped them. He left most of the jewels stuck to the thieves' hands so the cops would have the evidence they needed. However, he had learned the hard way that despite reports of theft, the police were not always diligent about returning all of the stolen property, especially not once it was reported as 'lost'.

So there he was, probably a comedic sight, walking down a sidewalk and picking up every pearl and gem he could see. By the time he made it back to the jewelry shop, it was probably just 10 minutes later. He used his web to seal up the glass wall, and he used the front door to enter. The store was dark, empty of people. There were mannequins strewn across the floor, easy to assume that they were there after the thieves did their business. As the door chime jingled out its tune, his hairs stood up when he heard a slight stumble. Had he missed someone?

He crept through the store slowly, hearing a scramble accompanied by the jingle of necklaces colliding. He stuck himself up on the ceiling hoping that he could use the element of surprise. Seconds later, he was above her, a small framed girl hard to make out in the light. She pocketed the necklaces and quickly zipped her bag. One hand to her purse strap, she rushed her way to the door. Peter was about to stop her when he saw her turn just as she reached the door, looking to see if anyone was following her.

She opened the door, and Peter reached his arm out. Simultaneously, the cheaply made ceiling tile he was on caved to his weight. Not even by an inch, the web missed her arm and hit her purse instead. She pulled once to resist her arrest and the purse fell open. Peter, meanwhile, was trying to catch himself, his mask pulled off by the sharp corner of one of the shelves. Picking up what she could she raced again out the door before Peter could even hide his face and reach her. By the time he got to the door, she was already a block away. He couldn't even glance at his mask before hearing the police sirens go off. Running away was more important than catching her he decided. Looking down at what she left behind, he saw a wallet and brightened. He had a chance!

Before he even opened it, he made sure to plant himself on the mall's roof. He watched the police make their way around his web before he finally got through the wallet. It was a simple purple zip-open. He could have sworn he'd seen it before. Making his way through the very little cash and many different business cards, he finally found something incriminating - a school ID.

The style of it was perfectly familiar. The purple edges, the white stripes, the graduating year labelled on it in big yellow letters. It was almost as familiar as the girl in the picture.

Michelle.

Peter felt sick to his stomach.

Had he seen anyone else (except maybe Ned), he wouldn't have been quite so surprised. There were plenty of kids who got themselves into trouble all the time at that school. Michelle had never been one of them. She was the girl in grade school who'd threaten to rat you out no matter how small the rule you were breaking. She was a stickler and a studious one at that. Peter couldn't remember the last time she was without a book in her hand. He remembered seeing her read during their middle school graduation, and he remembered how much he made fun of her for it.

Michelle wasn't a thief.

The next day at school, he wasn't quite sure how to deal with Michelle. He still had her wallet. He didn't know what to do about it, but he hoped that he wouldn't see her at school so that he wouldn't have to think about it. The whole day could've been a good one. He was briefly distracted during gym, when Liz talked to him about her new sneakers. Peter couldn't remember a word he had said, but he made Liz laugh at some point so he called it a win. He'd managed to avoid Michelle all day until he was back in physics class. She sat next to him when she arrived at class, looking exhausted like always. He wanted to believe she looked even more tired than usual but he couldn't actually confirm that. Maybe he was just wanting to see guilt where there wasn't any.

As she sat, he resolved he wouldn't say anything about it.

"Are you drawing flying men today or will you actually be paying attention?" She asked, not a hint of malice in her sarcasm. He couldn't believe she was making conversation, but he supposed he'd deserved it.

"I'd rather give the hero thing a rest," He mumbled, gluing his eyes to the board as their teacher continued talking. He hadn't been listening ever since Michelle entered the room.

"I thought I'd just pick partners randomly, but it seemed a lot easier to just make you work with your neighbors," the teacher explained. "And don't forget this project is worth 50% of your midterm grade."

"What?" Peter asked quietly startled out of his thoughts.

"We're partners," Michelle answered in her usual bored tone. They were partnered up often on in-class assignments, but never anything significant. He looked at her nervously. She noticed his stare after a few minutes, whispering so she wouldn't interrupt their teacher. "Is there a problem?"

"You've got something in your teeth," He lied calmly. He never thought he was a very passive aggressive person, but he couldn't feel guilty about it long, considering Michelle's quip back:

"You stare too much."

Maybe he was being aggressive, but he spent most of the day stomping around the school, trying to figure things out. He had no one he could tell, but Ned had picked up on something being wrong. Peter typically didn't get so angry, not for this long. He'd been moody for ages now, but it seemed like something about this had really set him off. He just couldn't imagine that even someone like Michelle could be a let down. There were really so few truly good people out there. He was used to living in a city full of crime and people who made bad choices. He knew whatever prompted Michelle to steal could have been significant, but he couldn't imagine how. All during lunch he found himself glaring in her direction and trying to figure out whether the crime was one of greed or one of impulse.

Before long, lunch was over and Peter was still debating whether or not he was overreacting. His feelings were getting the better of him lately. He spent an entire week ignoring Ned once when he wouldn't stop asking why Peter disappeared over the summer. Maybe it was time to check his attitude.

School let out and he looked to his phone for the first time all day. Two hours ago, he had received what was just a brief flash of text. It was Tony Stark, but he put the man's number under a false contact 'Anthony'.

Anthony: Don't forget to keep your head low.

Peter scowled. It was time to get Michelle her ID back, he decided just as he ran home to suit up.

A/N: Info time! The biggest off-canon change is that this takes place after Peter's cameo in Civil War but a year before Homecoming rather than two months. It is the start of Peter's freshman year in high school and he's just finished helping Tony Stark a few weeks ago.