A/N: This is a 'slice of life' piece, so not much in the way of action - it is set in the comicverse, in case anyone's confused :)

Thanks for the review!

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Chapter 2: Free Lunch

Peter sauntered into school Friday morning feeling very happy. Taking MJ to the show had been a success – he had only been five minutes late returning from intermission – and the rest of the evening had been quiet as well, which meant more time spent with his favourite redhead.

Walking down the hall, his mind elsewhere, Peter didn't notice the chaos, the noise, the trash, the kids - most of them ignored the teachers anyway – and so was brought back to awareness when he heard a familiar voice ring out.

He frowned as his mind slowly repeated to his consciousness what it had heard: "Mr Parker is Spider-Man!"

Right now, he thought, if I were the roll-my-eyes type, I would be rolling my eyes like anything. It was Marc, who evidentially, hadn't forgotten Thursday's little incident. On seeing Peter again, he had told all within earshot, i.e. the entire hall, his conclusions. Only, a slight adjustment had been made between then and now. 'Like' had become 'is'.

"Yeah, sure," Peter said, good humouredly, "and Principal Harrington is the Hulk. You wouldn't like him when he gets angry, so get to class, hey?"

Amidst a few laughs, and a few actual eye-rolls, Peter caught sight of Marc, looking not at all put off by his reply. Most of the students about had ignored him – Marc was just, you know, Marc – but a few were taking digs at him. Peter felt a sudden wave of compassion; his smart comment hadn't helped. A little less jaunty now, Peter arrived at his first class of the day.

Wouldn't you know it; Monitor duty. It was lunchtime, and Peter was roaming around the hallways, keeping a eye on the students, making sure their behaviour didn't get too out of hand. He knew that some of the teachers on this duty kept their metaphoric eyes shut, and he didn't blame them. He didn't know who, or what, to blame for what the way things were getting increasingly worse. He used to get picked on as a kid, maybe shoved about a bit, but never this level of violence. He saw far too much of it, and although he did his bit to try and stem the flow, both at school, and in his other job, it seemed as if the cut was getting deeper. At school he had soon learnt who the troublemakers were, and was just as concerned for them as he was the kids they victimised.

Take today, for instance; there was a huddle of teens near the bathroom door, a semicircle that spelled 'fight'. As he came closer, Pete could see that one of the participants was K'so Ortner, a dude who always wore the same hoodie and shades and attitude, no matter what the weather or time of day.

These kids didn't scatter at the sight of a teacher – they moved over and made room for them too. With a sigh, Peter saw the other person in the fight. It was Marc.

"Y'so dumb, I cud hit ya, an'ja tink it wor cos a luv ya," K'so was muttering to Marc. The actual physical fighting had obviously yet to start.

"And this coming from someone who mangles his native tongue to such an extent that an interpreter is required," put in Peter, earning himself a ferocious scowl from K'so, and jeers from the other students around.

Marc turned at the sound of his voice.

"Mr Parker, you're Spider-Man. Can you stop him?" he pleaded.

Pete gazed sternly at both K'so and Marc, trying to ignore the jibes from the other students. "Why don't you go pick on someone who's dumber than you, eh K'so?" he said mildly.

K'so scowled again, and Peter wondered if he had only made things worse. But his face cleared and he grabbed his buddy standing next to him by the sleeve.

"C'mon, s'not worth it," and slouched off, followed in drips and drabs by the disappointed would-be witnesses.

Peter watched them disperse, relieved and worried. What else had K'so in mind?

"Why didn't you be Spider-Man and stop him?" asked Marc, who had come up beside him.

"Huh?" Yeah, very intelligent response Pete. "Don't you have somewhere else to be?"

He walked on, continuing his rounds, trying his best to pretend that Marc wasn't following on his heels like a devoted puppy. A puppy who wouldn't stop talking.

"…bet it's cool, swinging an' shooting web an' fighting bad guys. And crawling up walls, wow!"

The young science teacher ignored the grins he got from other students, and the smirk he got from Kyle Jacobs as he passed him. He pushed open the doors into the cafeteria, a trip through here was his least favourite part of his school patrol, with sticky food underfoot, the mess on the tables, not to mention the smell. Was it the food, or the teenagers that made it stink? Peter delicately screwed up his nose, then grinned, as he thought of the much worse smells he'd encountered – the sewers beneath the city, for instance.

Remarkably, things were relatively peaceful in the cafeteria. It wasn't to last.

"Mr Parker is Spider-Man," announced a loud voice behind him, "I saw him stop two fights."

Peter winced, as the jeers started up.

"Yo, Spidey! Show us your webs!"

"Doncha mean 'Klutz-Man'?"

"Yeah riiiight."

"Hey spazzo, go fly."

But there were also a few thoughtful faces; he recognised students from his classes. The band-aids and bruises, the late arrivals, the non-attendances, Spider-Man seen in the school... How long before they started putting together their own little jig-saws?

Trying very hard not to hurry through the rest of the cafeteria, Peter ignored the cat-calls, but couldn't ignore the stale bread roll that was thrown in his direction. His spider-sense gave him plenty of warning of its approach, but he decided not to duck it – no need to add any more fuel to the fire.

Papf. It hit him square on the back of the head and bounced off . Stopping, and touching his head as in surprise, he turned to glance around the room, searching for the culprit. There were so many sniggers, he couldn't pin-point who it was who threw the damn thing. It didn't matter anyway.

"Next time, use a fresher roll, huh? That way I might get a free lunch out of it," he said in the general direction. The sniggers gave way to giggles – humour defusing the situation. Luckily, Marc kept his mouth shut until they were out of the caf.

He started berating Peter as soon as the doors closed behind them.

"Why didn't you duck? Why didn't you catch the roll? Spider-Man, you can do that easy."

This was getting tedious. Peter looked at the time – only ten more minutes of this, ten minutes before he could escape into the refuge of his classroom. He debated with himself whether to pull the kid aside and tell him that Spider-Man didn't want everyone knowing who he was, but thought that would probably encourage him more, as would trying to shush him up. No, ignoring it was the best option for now.

Teaching the afternoon classes, Peter noticed they had a slight undercurrent. He was aware of receiving more looks than usual, and the boredom threshold had been raised, enough, Peter wryly thought, that what he was saying was getting through to a few more students. When the bell rang for the end of the last class and the kids started filing out, Pete overheard a few comments from them as they talked to their friends.

"…too skinny. Spider-Man'll be built…"

"That colour does nothin' for ya – clashes with ya tats."

"Geez, it's just some mental kid, get over it already."

"Seriously? Spidey'd be cuter – and single."

'That's just swell,' thought Peter, as he gathered up his own belongings and shoved them into his old brown briefcase, 'the rumour is spreading and growing. Maybe I should have quashed it earlier.'

Thinking about the day, and the boy who was the cause of the annoyance, Peter strode down the sidewalk, not taking note of his surroundings. He was almost at the subway, when he felt the merest tingle from his spider-sense. He was being followed.

Curious, the young teacher took a detour from his intended route, and instead headed west. A couple of blocks over, he was still being followed. There were enough people about it would be hard to spot his shadow, even with the classic tying-up-a-loose-shoelace trick, unless…

Peter turned the corner into a less-crowded street. Being careful not to move too fast he walked seemingly unconcerned and waited until he found an opening between buildings. Suddenly, he zoomed into the gap, and rapidly scaled the wall until he was on the roof of the three story building a few seconds later. He peered over the edge.

Down below, standing near the gap, was a figure he recognised and was beginning to be heartily sick of the sight of.

Marc.

TBC