Peter

Queens, New York

Ned held true to his promise.

The next morning, when we met up to walk to school together, he didn't even mention my parents or Spider-Man.

For at least ten minutes.

"So how did the spider bite you?" he asked while we were walking down the crosswalk.

I sighed and shifted the books in my arms.

I still didn't have a backpack for school, so I had to carry all of my stuff today.

Aunt May promised she would go buy one after she left work.

It was a good thing I had super strength or this would be the worst day ever.

"Well, either way, I would let it bite me." Ned continued. "Wait, how much did it hurt?"

"The spider's dead, Ned."

But Ned was staring straight ahead.

I followed his eyes.

Across the street was Delmar's deli.

There was a big crater in the middle of it with lots of black smoke steaming out of the building.

The entire area was yellow-taped by police officers.

Cops and detectives bustled around, taking pictures of the crime scene and talking on their walkie-talkies.

Ned stared at it in shock.

"You were here last night?"

"Yeah."

The damage looked so much worse in daylight. This was 's livelihood and it had literally gone up in flames.

"You could've died."

Suddenly, Ned's thrill of me being a superhero had been replaced with grim reality.

I think it was for me too.

He was right. I could've gotten killed.

And if Natasha heard about this, how would she react?

I hadn't caught the bad guys, I hadn't saved the day.

Instead, I risked my life, wrestled some cosplayers and a building went up in flames.

Of course, I didn't know how Natasha would react. I'd only known her for two hours at best.

We rode the train in silence. When it stopped at our school, we crossed the football field and were crossing the street when….

Screech!

Flash Thompson, the self-proclaimed richest kid in school almost ran us over with his dad's convertible.

"Sup Parker?" Flash said tauntingly.

After he drove away, realization spread across Ned's face.

"Wait, so you could've beaten-up Flash for six months?"

"Dude, I could get in big trouble."

"Oh, yeah."

As annoying as Flash was, he wasn't the enemy. Sure, he made you feel smaller, but that was all talk. The real bullies out there were the criminals and gangs that terrorized New York. And Hydra and the Red Room.

This year, Ned and I had almost every class together, which was really awesome.

Our first class of the day was English, with ten minutes of silent reading before we started analyzing old poetry.

Ned kept staring at the book I was reading.

"What?" I whispered. We weren't supposed to be talking.

"When you started reading Crime and Punishment, I thought you might've been going through a weird phase. But it makes a whole lot more sense now."

I glanced at the cover.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky was printed in bold Times New Roman font, hovering over a picture of an ax.

It's a really depressing story about a poor law student in Moscow, Russia who turns to murder.

But I wanted to read it because it's considered a Russian classic and Natasha was from Russia. But if all Russian literature was like this, I didn't want to keep diving into it.

In social studies class, while our teacher was rambling about the Sokovia Accords, Ned leaned in really close and whispered,

"Do you control an army of spiders?"

"What? No."

Just because I was a spider-themed superhero didn't mean I was a spider overlord or something…right?

In science class, we got to work in the lab today. This was one of the few chances that I had to make web fluid, so I snagged some extra chemicals from the storage cabinet and began heating them up over a bunsen burner.

"So have you ever shot your webs really far?"

"Huh?"

"You know, have you ever wondered how far your webs could go?"

Our teacher, walked down the aisle between the desks.

I opened up my laptop to hide my unsanctioned experiment.

"I don't know, dude." I hissed. "Shut up."

At lunch, we both sat down at our table in the furthest corner of the cafeteria.

On the other side of the cafeteria, I watched Liz Allen float across the room.

"Did Liz get a new top?" I asked, resting my head on my hand.

I didn't remember her wearing the cream-colored sweater with a burgundy skirt. But everything looked good on Liz.

"No, you've seen that one before, just not with that skirt." Ned said.

I'm not sure what was creepier; me knowing Liz's wardrobe or Ned knowing it better.

"Too late." said a voice.

We looked to our right. It was Michelle Jones- the brooding bookworm that sat at our usually-empty table.

"You guys are losers."

I shrugged defensively. Jones didn't talk a lot, but when she did, it was something short and angsty.

"Then why do you sit with us then?" Ned asked.

"Because I don't have any friends."

She buried herself back in her book. Michelle Jones could be seen reading all the time. This time, I noticed that it was Fathers and Sons.

Huh. What were the odds that we were both reading books from the same country and time period? Michelle Jones saw me staring and smiled snarkily.

After lunch was Spanish. While Senor Guitierez was explaining present-tense verbs, I was secretly doing Russian Duolingo on my phone.

Bucky and Natasha both spoke Russian. It was my way of trying to get close to them when they couldn't be here.

A sentence written in Russian cryllic came up.

I gave it a hard look. It was tricky to force my brain to read new letters when it had been wired to read the alphabet all my life.

I was so focused on the sentence, that I hadn't noticed Senor Guitierez looming above me.

"Mr. Parker, is something on social media more interesting than our lesson?" he asked.

I jerked my head up.

"Uh-no….sir. It won't happen again."

He held out his hand for my phone. I was bracing myself for the inevitable 'see me after class'.

He looked at the screen.

"Hmm. Russian."

He gave me my phone back. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Unfortunately, Peter. Midtown High doesn't offer Russian classes. If you want to become trilingual, I suggest doing that outside of school."

"Say something in Russian." Ned said on our way to gym class.

"Net, ya ne khochu." I said, grinning.

"Sick, man."

We had just come out of the locker rooms when Coach Wilson hollered at us to sit down on the benches.

He got two kids to roll out an old box tv on a cart and he put a DVD in.

Captain America showed up on the screen.

"Hi there. I'm Captain America."

I did a double-take. I was so used to seeing news reports and videos with Captain America. But that was before Leipzig.

Now I'd seen him for who he really was. Just an average guy like everyone else who just so happened to have superpowers.

I couldn't stop thinking about the last thing he said to me,

"I've been waiting seventy years for my best friend to have kids. Do you really think that I'm gonna pass up on that opportunity?"

What did that mean exactly? Was Captain America, I mean Steve, wanting to be like an uncle for me? This shiny, law-abiding Captain America who did government videos was so much different from the now fugitive Captain America.

As the old Steve rambled on about the Captain America fitness challenge, Ned whispered,

"So that's your Dad's best friend?"

"Yeah. I met him."

We were sitting in the top row of benches, so I didn't worry about anybody listening in on our conversation.

Sure, there was Michelle Jones, but she was reading a book.

In hindsight, maybe I should've noticed that her eyes wandered in our direction more than a few times.

"...with the help of my personal friend, your gym teacher," Captain America gestured to his right, but Coach Wilson was on the other side of him. Coach waved to the class.

"You'll begin a series of physical challenges that both soldiers and students should know." Captain America finished.

"What's he like?" Ned asked.

"I stole his shield."

"What?"

The video finished.

"Thank you, Captain America." Coach Wilson said. "I'm pretty sure this guy's a war criminal now, but I have to show this. It's required by the state."

We got started on the first part of the fitness challenge; sit-ups.

Ned and I partnered up.

"Is Captain America cool or is he like a grouchy old grandpa?" Ned asked, pressing on my feet while I did sit-ups.

I would answer his questions any other time, but not now. Not when other people might be listening.

"Ned, shhhhh."

"Hey, can I be your guy in the chair?" Ned asked.

I rose off the mat. "The what?"
"You know how there's a guy, right?"

I went back down.

"And he's surrounded by all these computers and he has this headset and he tells the other guy where to go. I could be that guy for you!"

I pulled myself up.

"Ned, there is no guy in the chair."

Coach Wilson was passing by.

"Lookin' good, Parker."

I stopped in mid sit-up and remembered that I needed to look like I was trying. Before I got bitten by the spider, everyone knew that my chronic asthma and bad upper-body strength made gym class hard for me.

But for the last year, this was one of my easiest classes and people had noticed.

It was Ned's turn to do sit-ups, but we were distracted by a small group of girls sitting on the benches, talking. One of them was Liz.

"Well, I would kiss Thor, marry Iron Man, and kill Hulk." Betty Brant said.

Aw, great. They were playing kiss, marry, kill.

"What about Spider-Man?" a girl named Mira Ramirez asked.

Betty made a face."It's just Spider-Man."

Ouch.

"Did you guys see that YouTube video of him?" Liz asked. "He fought off, like four guys!"

Ned and I gave each other wide-eyed looks.

"Oh, my gosh. You have a crush on Spider-Man!" Betty teased.

Liz shrugged it off. "Kind of."

"Ugh, gross."

Did Liz just say what I thought she said?

I looked at Ned again.
"He could be thirty." Betty said.

"Or all burned up." Mira added.

"Or all burned-up." Mira added.

"Well, that doesn't matter because I would love him for who he is on the inside." Liz said.

I could feel my heart melting a little.

"Peter knows Spider-Man!" Ned blurted out loud. Loud enough for everyone in the gym to hear. Loud enough for heads to turn.

Loud enough even for Michelle Jones to look up from her book.

I stood up abruptly. I'd better start explaining fast.

"Uh, well, I kind of know him."
"They're friends." Ned said.

Flash slid down from a rope hooked from the ceiling.

"Kinda like Coach Wilson and Captain America?" he asked.

Liz's friends tried to hold in their laughs.

"I know him….through the Stark internship thing." I said, my eyes bouncing back and forth between Liz and Flash.

"Oh, really?" Flash said sarcastically.

"Well, I'm not really supposed to talk about it." I hissed at Ned.

"Hey, you know what? Maybe you should invite him to Liz's party." Flash egged on.

I glanced at Liz.

"Yeah, I'm having some people over. He's more than welcome to come." she said, pulling a strand of hair behind her ear.

"A party…..?" I echoed.

"Yeah, it's gonna be dope." Flash said. "You should bring your personal friend, Spider-Man."

"Uh-"

My mind was whirling. Liz had unofficially invited me to her party. She liked Spider-Man, so that had to mean she also liked me.

"It's okay." Liz said. "I know Peter's busy with the Stark Internship and everything."

It felt like I was letting her down. I needed to make up some kind of excuse as to why Spider-Man couldn't come, but I just couldn't.

Flash put the final nail in the coffin for me.

"Oh, he'll be there. Right, Parker?"

The bell rang, signaling us to the next period.

It looked like Spider-Man was going to Liz's party after all.


Thanks for reading! I know it's been awhile. I've been dealing with cursed writer's block recently.

If anyone who likes Russian literature is reading this, I'm sorry. I don't mean to offend anyone.

I'll be skipping some parts from Homecoming. I don't think it's essential to the story I'm going with.

Reviews are appreciated!