Peter awoke early for the next day of school, before his alarm, which never happened. He'd finished his patrol last night and managed to stop a bicycle thief and a carjacking, but it hadn't kept him out too late. But today was his first real day of his assignment.
On the subway to school, he couldn't stop fidgeting. When he replayed it in his mind, It sounded dumb, like he was babysitting, but it had to be important of Mr. Stark wouldn't have asked. The girl herself seemed pretty well adjusted by their encounters, but he had no clue what "school" she'd been referring to when they'd last spoken and Peter had a feeling she didn't mean New York Public Education.
Arriving at school, he leapt up the steps of the subway to ground level two at a time, narrowly missing being buzzed by an expensive sports car. Flash stopped it only long enough to call out "Hey, Penis Parker!" Before zipping back off towards the parking lot at speeds Peter knew were not school approved.
He glanced around for Katya amongst the throngs of students that were entering the building but couldn't spot her bright blonde head. Maybe she was already inside.
Peter headed towards his locker- he was sure she'd find him when she needed to- and exchanged the books he'd brought home for the ones he'd need for first period. He felt movement on his shoulder and tensed.
"Join me." a voice said, ominous, but it was obviously Ned. "and together, we can build my new Lego Death Star." Ned had placed the figure of Palpatine on Peter's shoulder as if to pretend the voice was from him.
"No way!" Peter turned around, excited. They'd been trying to get their hands on that model for months. "How many pieces?"
"3,803." Ned announced proudly. Peter grinned.
"What? That's insane!"
"I know!" Ned grinned. "You wanna build it tonight?"
Peter's face fell. "I can't, I've got the-"
"Stark internship, yeah, I know. Boy's got that internship."
"Who knows," Peter tried to keep his voice casual, "Maybe it'll lead to a real job with him someday."
"That'd be awesome." Ned gushed. "He'd be all 'good job on those spreadsheets Peter, here's a gold coin." Ned paused. "I don't know how jobs work."
"That's exactly how they work, Ned."
At the end of the hallway, just down from the main office, Peter spied a familiar head of blond hair, pulled up into the same high ponytail she'd been wearing before this time with some sort of velvet scrunchie. SHe was looking down at a paper in her hands quizzically, before looking up and, scanning the crowd around her for a bit, locking eyes with Peter. He smiled, and waved as they continued heading her direction.
"Wait, do you know her? Is she new?" Ned asked, seemingly trying to keep his voice covert and failing spectacularly. Peter nodded.
"Yeah, she just, er…transferred. I know her from the internship."
Ned gaped. "You get to hang out with Avengers and pretty girls? That's awesome."
Peter felt his cheeks heat up and he adjusted the grip on his backpack's strap as the distance closed between him, Ned, and Katya. "Yeah, well…"
"Hello!' she chimed brightly, once they were close enough to be within earshot. Her demeanor was a complete one-eighty from when she'd been slamming him to the ground not 24 hours ago, and nearly gave him whiplash.. "They gave me this, and I think it's supposed to be where I go." she thrust the paper forward into his hands and, as expected, it was a school schedule. "But it looks like a different classroom every hour."
"Yeah, that's, er-" he rubbed the back of his neck, not sure why his nerves were firing so rapidly. "That's how we do it here. Each period is a different classroom."
Beside him, Ned cleared his throat.
"Oh, right!" Peter added, "Katya, this is Ned Leeds, my best friend. Ned, this is Katya-" he hesitated, forgetting exactly how she'd said her last name yesterday, and didn't want to butcher it- "My, er, lab partner at the internship."
Ned's face brightened and he held out a hand. "That's so cool that you go to the internship too, do you know the Avengers?"
Katya's face slowly steeled itself and she raised an eyebrow, but didn't answer his question.
The bell rang to warn the students of the last five minutes to get to class, so Peter looked down at Katya's schedule to help her out. Turned out they had the same first period….and second…and third….
Their schedules were nearly identical. No way that had been a mistake. Peter wasn't sure whether to be irritated or not, but before he could decide Liz Toomes walked down the hallway close enough that he could smell her perfume and his brain went offline for a moment.
By the time he'd tuned back in, Ned was already rambling, the three of them now headed down towards the hallway that held their first class. "So, I"ll knock out the basic bones at my place, and then I can come over and we can finish it together."
Peter was still recovering from the momentary short circuit, and barely caught a passing smirk dance across Katya's lips. "Yeah, " he answered Ned absentmindedly, "That sounds great."
Ned veered off with a wave to the both of them to head to his first class across the hall. It was Katya's voice that finally brought Peter back fully into reality.
"So he doesn't know." It took Peter a second to figure out what she meant, but then nodded hurriedly.
"No, nobody does. Just you, Happy, and Mr. Stark. Not even my Aunt May knows." he lowered his voice as they entered the classroom. "And we've got to keep it that way."
—- —-
Peter barely realized the time passing in class, as he was too busy searching youtube with his volume off to watch the growing stream of spiderman encounter videos that had been popping up online. People filming him doing everyday things, mostly web slinging, with the occasional civilian interaction and car crash prevention.
"Peter!" the teacher called, "You still with us?"
Peter closed the laptop hurriedly and glanced to his right, where Katya was sitting and staring at the opened page in the textbook, her eyes narrowed in confusion. Did she have any idea what they were doing?
"Yes, Miss, Sorry, Miss. Erm-" he glanced at the board quickly to catch up to what was going on, " Mass cancels out, so it's just gravity times sine."
The teacher looked at him skeptically for a moment but nonetheless praised him. "Correct," she added with a smile. "See, Flash, being fast isn't always a good thing if you're wrong."
Flash turned around in his seat and mouthed, You're dead. Next to him, Katya flicked the edge of the ballpoint pen's cap that she'd been messing with hard enough for it to snap off, but she hadn't even been looking at Flash, so Peter shoved it off as weird timing.
FInally, the school day ended, and Peter slipped as best he could from the rest of the mob of students making their way to the exit, trying to find the quietest side door to exit through. He quickly tossed his backpack over the railing of the school yard before leaping over it himself. He was pumped for patrol that night, as he always was, but as he gathered his things and stood up he came face to face with Katya.
"Not very subtle." was all she offered.
"Yeah, er, so-" Peter didn't know what to do with his hand, so he gripped his backpack straps. "I"m just going to go get a sandwich…."
"And then you're going to spend the night doing vigilante work, I know." Katya said, her voice only slightly hushed. Thankfully, there was no one close enough to them to hear anyway.
"What-how did you-"
"Do you really think Tony was going to have me follow you without knowing who you are?"
Back up. "Have you follow me? I'm supposed to be watching you."
Katya rolled her eyes. "Fine, I guess we watch each other."
Peter straightened up to his full height instinctively. "I don't need watching."
Katya pursed her lips. "Neither do I, but I apparently need a mentor, so here we are."
"I thought Mr. Stark was your mentor?"
Katya shrugged. "Sort of. But he wanted someone my age I could learn from."
Peter's mind flashed back to yesterday. "You don't seem to have much learning you need to do."
"FIghting, no. Being a student at a normal school in a normal place, yes."
HIs mind flashed back to yesterday- "I"m done with that now"-but he didn't push. He guessed he could drag her on patrol with him, and just keep her out of his way. He couldn't help the frustrated twist in his stomach at the idea that she was supposed to be learning how to be 'normal' from him, that's- that's not what he was about. He wasn't normal. He was Spiderman.
Why did nobody seem to understand that?
Sighing, he waved her along as they started down the street. "Okay," he said, his tone brighter than he felt, "I'm going to show you the best sandwich in Queens, that's pretty normal."
—-
"Two number fives, with pickles, squished down real flat please." Peter ordered, after grabbing his usual packs of sour gummies and setting them on the table as well. "Do you want anything else?"
He'd turned to Katya but she was too busy scanning the place, eyes wide, but still in a calculative sort of way, as if she was reconning the place. If anywhere in Queens was safely innocuous, it was Delmar's but he didn't blame her. He'd been coming here since he was a kid with Aunt May, but for her this was a brand new place and he was beginning to get the feeling she'd never been in a bodega before.
"Katya" he put a hand on her shoulder and whilst she didn't flinch, she could feel it tense under his fingertips, He quickly pulled it away. "Do you want anything else?"
"There's so much stuff in here." She wasn't whispering, but her voice was low, in awe. Mr. Delmar laughed.
"I tend to keep myself pretty well stocked. There's a new shipment of Takis in the back if you'd like."
If she knew or didn't know what Takis were her face betrayed neither, but she wandered away into the aisles.
"So how's your aunt?" Mr. Delmar asked, his voice teasing. Peter sighed inwardly.
"Yeah, she's good. She's good."
Delmar turned to someone behind him and fired off rapid spanish about how his aunt was a gorgeous Italian woman. Peter wasn't actually sure if Aunt May was Italian, but he kept that to himself. "Y como esta tu hija, eh?" he managed out with a smirk.
Delmar's face darkened. "Ten dollars."
"What?! It's only five!" he gestured up to the menu.
"Yeah, but for that comment, ten dollars."
"Here's five." Peter grumbled, and grabbed both of the prepared sheepishly slipped another five onto the counter after realizing that he'd bought two sandwiches that day and Mr. Delmar was, as usual, messing with him.
Katya wandered back up by then, empty handed, but still clearly enthralled by her environment. She reached over to pet Murph, a tender smile plastered across her face.
He handed her both the sandwiches and offered Mr. Delmar a two fingered salute as the duo exited the store.
—-
"So normally," Peter told her between bites of his sandwich. The two were perched at the very bottom of a fire escape in an alleyway Peter had chosen at random. "I ditch my school stuff and then hang out around the area as Spiderman for a while, helping anyone who needs it."
Katya nodded, taking one of the sour gummies from the bag that lay open between them. "So how can I help?"
Peter hesitated. "I"m not sure you can. I kind of work alone and besides- you don't even have a suit."
"Do I need one?"
"Well, if you're going to try to blend in at school but then run around the area without a disguise subduing bad guys I don't think that's , er, conducive."
Katya snorted. "Bad guys" she muttered under her breath, and Peter couldn't help but feel like she was mocking his choice of words.
"If you want to be partners in this, maybe you can have Mr. Stark make you a suit." Peter began, "It could be super cool, you could have spider insignias too, we could be like a real team!" It'd feel much more like a real mission if he had a real avenger- was she an avenger? He still didn't fully believe her denial of it- by his side. Katya shook her head.
"I don't think I'm supposed to be getting involved in anything like this."
"What do you mean?"
Katya put her sandwich down and took a deep breath. A beat passed between them before she finished. "I mean I don't want to hurt people anymore."
A pang shot through Peter's chest. "No, no, we're not hurting people- we're helping them. There's no killing or anything, we just make sure the bad guys- er, criminals- don't get away with what they're trying to do. We don't hurt anyone. We don't even really beat up anyone, usually i just web them up until the police can come grab them."
Katya hesitated, but took another bite of her sandwich instead of answering. A silence passed between them, long enough for them both to finish eating.
"Okay." She muttered, shrugging. "I could ask."
Peter grinned. Having a partner would just be a step closer to joining the real rest of the team, and he didn't have to worry about her not being able to handle herself. "Great!"
"So, what do I do this afternoon until you're done with-" she gestured vaguely in front of them, "Whatever this is?"
Peter shuffled his feet. "You could go back to the tower and ask Tony about a suit."
Katya shrugged.
"Or you could go to my place and wait from there, and I can help you with your homework when I get back."
Katya scowled. "Who said I needed help on my homework?" Peter couldn't help but laugh a little.
"The absolutely lost face you had each time you opened a textbook in class today."
Katya huffed, and Peter knew he was right. "Fine," she grumbled, "I'll do that. Where's your apartment?"
"Just a few blocks down this street and to the left. The call box doesn't work, but May probably won't be home anyway, so it's just seven stories up and 24A." He handed her the keys. "If May gets home before I do, just tell her you're a friend that needs help on their homework and I told you to wait there. Don't mention the Stark Internship though, or she'll be confused why I"m not home too. That way, you're not even lying."
Katya nodded and stood, pocketing the keys in her jeans. "Okay then," she scuffed her foot against the asphalt and offered him a small smile. "I"ll see you later. Thanks for the sandwich."
"Anytime." Peter smiled back, before pulling on his hood and slinging away.
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