Thursday

March 20th, 2025

5:39 P.M.

Michelle stared blankly at the open sketchbook in front of her.

She was sitting at the table in Ned's house, heels up on the edge of her seat, sketchbook propped up against her knees. A large, overflowing Ziploc bag of Legos sat on the table next to her, and Ned moved quietly around in the kitchen.

They had gone straight to his house after closing up the shop. After quickly confirming his grandmother was still taking her evening nap upstairs, Ned had then—in obvious defiance of the invisible weight they had both been dragging around since Peter's departure—suggested he make them something to eat. Specifically, he suggested he make Lola's churros con tsokolate, the ensuing description of which Michelle found simultaneously appetizing and heavy.

She hadn't really been hungry, but she could tell by Ned's uncharacteristic lack of commentary that he was just as perturbed by the recent confrontation with Peter as she was. And since neither one of them seemed to have had the energy or the words to properly process what had happened yet, she'd decided to give Ned's snack a try. Maybe their thoughts would be more organized by the time he finished them anyway.

So, for at least ten minutes, Michelle sat in silence—or at least silence interrupted only by her own clamoring thoughts and the persistent ticking of a clock on the wall opposite her. She'd finally had enough of her own irritatingly persistent restlessness when the pan of hot oil Ned put on the stove began to pop and crackle.

She stood up, took a deep breath, and walked over to lean on the island as Ned dug around in the fridge. She cleared her throat, eyeing a pastry bag full of something pale and runny on the counter instead of Ned himself.

"Do you believe what Peter told us?" she asked evenly.

"Huh?"

Something rattled, and Ned leaned back out of the fridge with a carton of heavy cream in hand.

"Do you believe what Peter told us about how he met us and why we forgot him?"

Ned frowned.

"It would be easier to believe everything he said," he said limply, and Michelle dropped her gaze to the top of the island. "I mean, the answers he gave us to our questions did make sense—or at least as much sense as magic and the multiverse and stuff. And…part of me kind of wanted to believe him for some reason, you know? Just so things can go back to normal and we can start feeling like ourselves again."

Michelle nodded even though Ned's back was to her. Though she hated to admit it to herself because it felt oddly like a betrayal (whether to herself or Peter, she wasn't sure), she had thought the same thing not long ago.

"But?" Michelle prompted when her friend continued to work silently on the food he was preparing. Once again, however, she felt like she knew what Ned was going to say before he even opened his mouth because it was the same thing she was thinking.

"But I think Peter was lying. A lot. And…for some reason, I also think he needs our help."

Michelle inhaled softly at how simply her friend put it, even though something heavy settled in her stomach at the words. It didn't even surprise her that they were on the exact same page at this point. How could they ever just pretend Peter hadn't affected them as strongly as he did—even if they still couldn't explain why entirely?

And yet in some ways, Ned's first statement was right. It could be easier just to take what Peter had told them at face-value. After all, their physical symptoms had gone away and, presumably, whatever had happened with Ned and the orange sparks earlier today meant the spell had actually been broken and not just weakened.

Furthermore, when they were walking to Ned's house earlier, she had told him about the flashback she'd experienced in the shop soon after Peter arrived. And to her surprise, he responded by telling her something similar happened to him—his flashback wasn't quite as dramatic as hers, but it was just as devoid of context and was triggered not by Peter's bloody nose but by Peter sitting down beside him. Ned explained it was pretty much just an intense sense of déjà vu and the idea that he and Peter had sat in roughly these same seats before, reading something together. He said he felt super disappointed and confused for a few seconds too, but those feelings disappeared as soon as Michelle started talking to Peter.

While Michelle neither knew nor really wanted to know exactly how Peter's forgetting spell was originally intended to function, she had used this to form the tentative theory that the rest of their memories surrounding Peter Parker weren't just going to come back on their own—they were going to have to be triggered by Peter Parker himself.

(Or at the very least, she guessed, they needed to be triggered by something closely associated with him in their memories).

This meant that if even part of what Peter told them was true and it really was safer they knew and were involved in his life as Spiderman as little as possible, then they could technically live their lives in relative peace from now on, free from his interference or any more life-threatening situations like the ones they could still remember in bits and pieces from just before Christmas last year. Peter had promised to stay away from them, so they could graduate high school, go to college, live in a new city

Except…that was so far from what Michelle really wanted, wasn't it?

(How could she just turn her back on Peter when he was so obviously struggling—when an ache of wrongness still accompanied her every thought of him and he seemed so desperate and she knew he was lying?)

No, what she really wanted was to know why and how Peter's life had apparently been so intertwined with theirs that, for better or for worse, even a spell hadn't been able to fully sever the ties between them. She wanted to know the whole truth, and that meant she had to find Peter—the real Peter. She had to find the person who had been so real in her flashback, whose pain and uncertainty and silent cry for help she'd seen written so clearly in his eyes when he'd turned to look at her that last time before leaving the shop.

So, in that moment—whether or not Ned decided to do the same—she resolved to find Peter and help him in whatever way she could. She chose to operate on the assumption that her memory would work itself out as she went along, but she also decided that even if it didn't, she would just start from the beginning and trust that her past self knew what she was doing by getting involved with whoever Peter was beyond Spiderman.

She had a sneaking suspicion Ned would want to do the same.

"Ned," she began as her own thoughts crystallized and a borderline giddy energy replaced her previous dejection. A chorus of furious crackling began as he squeezed churro batter from the pastry bag into the pan of hot oil, so Michelle had to raise her voice slightly to be heard. "I think this is our red pill."

Ned glanced at her over his shoulder to give her a look that laid somewhere between confusion and concentration.

"Wait, what? A red pill like…in the Matrix?"

Michelle smirked and straightened up as her own excitement began rising, as a more concrete plan to find Peter began taking shape in her head.

"Yeah. You compared all of this to the Matrix before, right? Well, this is our red and blue pill: we either choose to find out the whole truth about Peter Parker—to go find him and do whatever we're supposed to do. Or we just…don't. We believe what he said and move on."

It was clear by her tone which option she leaned toward, and Ned turned to her, understanding and excitement dawning on his face as he forgot about the elaborate snack he was making. Churro batter dribbled onto the floor.

"Bro, yes. That analogy worked so much better than I thought it would..."

"And I think I know how we can start getting more of our memories back, even if we don't find Peter right away," Michelle began again. She paused and dimly thought that Ned probably shouldn't be so distracted while deep-frying churros—but the weight of the moment quickly crowded out that concern. She raised an eyebrow at Ned.

"Just for clarity's sake, I assume you do want to find him with me, right?"

Ned looked mildly offended but nodded vigorously anyway. The slightest hint of doubt as to whether or not he felt as strongly about helping Peter as she did dissipated.

"Duh, I'm going to take the red pill," he said. "What's the plan? Are we going to talk to that wizard guy—Dr. Strange? He could probably help us get the rest of our memories back, right?"

Michelle shook her head.

"I think we should wait on bringing anyone else into this. Even if he did have something to do with it and was willing to help us, I think we can get our memories back and find Peter without his help. I think we should start with what we know—"

"Spiderman?"

"Yes. We can work out from there. It may mean we have to do some research or physically go out into the city, but I do believe our memories eventually lead us to wherever Peter is, or at least to where he's most likely to be."

Ned considered her words for a moment before apparently deciding her plan was solid. He solemnly pinched two of the fingers on his free hand together to perform what might have been a rough imitation of a magic ritual. The single churro he'd gotten into the pan before Michelle distracted him popped warningly behind him, but he either ignored or didn't hear it.

"As possessor of the gift for the mystic arts," he said regally, voice low and dramatic. "I hereby declare my approval of this plan."

Michelle snorted and then nodded at the mess of flour and batter and eggshell behind him.

"I'm ecstatic. But does the Sorcerer Supreme also approve of the churro burning behind him?" she asked dryly.

Ned yelped and whirled around.

Michelle smiled, but a now-familiar ache in her chest began to rise alongside the breathlessness in her lungs as she considered what their search for Peter and the truth might lead them to.

And yet she knew without a doubt that she and Ned both could have never chosen to do anything but follow this mystery through all the way to the end. He was with her on this—and for some unknown reason she was done questioning at the moment, she knew that was just how it was supposed to be—perhaps for Peter's sake more than for their own.

It was time to remember who Peter Parker really was.

11:08 P.M.

The first concrete memory of Peter came to Michelle when she was lying in bed, scrolling through local news reports from 2017.

After churros and tsokolate, she and Ned had agreed to spend the rest of the evening catching up on their mounting homework assignments and scouring the Internet for any and every detail they could find about either Peter Parker or Spiderman. They planned to swap any memories that might have returned when they met for lunch at school the next day; that afternoon and the rest of the weekend, they would then begin searching for Peter in earnest.

In Michelle's mind, the plan was little more than a ploy to test her theory about what the process of recovering their memories might look like. And, indeed, the majority of the night seemed to disprove that theory—she found nothing at all about Peter Parker, and even after reading countless articles over everything from Spiderman's first few days on the streets to heated Reddit threads speculating about his shoe size, she got nothing but a dull eye-strain headache and relentlessly drooping eyelids for her efforts.

And then she found the article that triggered the memory.

It wasn't anything unusually bold or sensational—not compared to some of the libelous Daily Bugle reports she'd skimmed, at least. In fact, it was nothing more than a post on some long-outdated personal blog, but it approached the early days of Spiderman's career from a perspective she hadn't seen much of yet.

It claimed that—just by virtue of his career so far—Spiderman might always be overlooked and overshadowed by more powerful, high-stakes heroes like the Avengers, but he was unique because he so clearly cared for his city on a micro- as well as macro-level. Whether he was offering directions to confused passerby or stopping a bank heist with nothing but his strange webs and ambiguously enhanced abilities, no problem was too small for him to bother with. And even though it was painfully obvious he was working with few resources—his suit itself was far from extraordinary or even very protective—and despite the fact that sometimes he made more of a mess than the solution to a perceived threat was worth, the article suggested that Spiderman was in some ways "representative of the silent fighting spirit possessed by millions of unseen New York City residents determined to that make a difference in the world, one choice at a time."

The author concluded the post by saying that every time the man behind that suit went swinging through the city, he clearly chose to do so from a place of immense heart and will that everyone would do well to learn from.

It was a will, the author said, to do good time and time again, even when it might seem trivial to those looking on—a will to see the challenges and injustices around him and to try his best to something about them with whatever he had to offer.

And though Michelle initially found the piece more than a little idyllic, when she came to the last sentence of the article, she found she didn't really care.

Because she remembered the first time she met Peter Parker.

Michelle had rules she knew she had to follow if she was going to survive high school.

The first one was to always expect the worst; that way, when she had to move again or the facades dropped or she started chafing against everything the school and its populace expected of her, she wouldn't really be disappointed.

The second rule was related, in a way: watch everything. After all, she could only know what to expect if she understood the basic repertoire of reactions possessed by the people around her. It was basic psychology. And in an institution that was basically just one big, fermenting social experiment and hormonal cesspool anyway, she knew psychology (and books) would be the only tool she had to stay afloat.

The third rule, perhaps a little less concrete than the others, was simply to remember that friends were generally overrated—that no matter how much they might claim to care about her, when her world fell apart and theirs didn't, people always found it easier to just pretend nothing was wrong. To pretend she was never really a part of their lives at all so things didn't get too uncomfortable or messy.

And for a little while, Michelle's plan to follow those three core principles worked.

After a few random, halfhearted attempts at befriending her died on impact, people just…left her alone. Accordingly, she told herself she was more than content to face the rest of high school by herself—head down, hoarding information she knew she'd never share just because she could. To top it off, by the end of her first two weeks at Midtown School of Science and Technology, Michelle also thought she had all her immediate classmates pretty much figured out—except one.

His name was Peter Parker. He was awkward and usually quiet and maybe got a little too excited over the periodic table—but even that description could have applied to any number of the students at this school. No, what really caught Michelle's attention when it came to Parker was something altogether different: he broke all her rules on a daily basis—and seemed genuinely happy to be doing so, even though he remained almost as much of a loner as her.

Her first true introduction to that fact occurred when she made the mistake of being the first student in second-period English one day. Even the teacher had stepped out to talk with her colleagues amongst the whine and chaos of post-bell traffic.

She was so focused on finishing a detailed portrait of her mom that she didn't even notice Peter enter the room and pause beside her desk as he passed by. Her heart skipped a beat at the sudden intrusion of his voice.

"Hey, that's really cool!"

Her expression was blank as she looked up at him and very deliberately did not think of anything but her rules at the sight of the subtle grin on his face.

(Even so, she thought that maybe if she had been someone different, she would have thought that grin was charming, if a little distracted).

"Thanks," she replied shortly after a beat, and then she pretended to finish shading a lock of hair tucked behind her mother's ear. But Peter didn't leave after that, like she expected him to. Instead, he stuck out his hand—like people actually did that in high school.

"I'm Peter, by the way," he said apologetically, as if he knew exactly how weird his offer of a handshake was in the context but chose to do it anyway because he didn't know what else to do. "Sorry we haven't, uh, talked before. I kind of feel like I should know everyone in class by now, but…you know."

Peter ducked his head and Michelle really didn't know what to do because by then people had usually picked up on the flatness of her tone and expression enough to be mildly offended by it.

(And leave).

"Uh, Michelle. Nice to…meet you," she said finally, touching his hand only as long as she had to.

And yet he still didn't leave, choosing instead to fidget with the strap of his backpack as Michelle conspicuously shifted her body away from him in her seat, a signal that the conversation could come to a reasonable, painless conclusion. Other students began to trickle into the room, eyeing them curiously as they did so.

(Michelle hated high school so much).

"Um. Sorry to keep bothering you," Peter said, breaking Michelle out of her thoughts again. "But are you okay? You…seem…kind of sad or something?"

His voice cracked a little bit at the end, and Michelle was completely taken aback by the question. He frowned as he looked at her, and even though he was nervously shifting his weight back and forth on his feet like he couldn't quite decide if he'd crossed some kind of line, he didn't walk away. He waited for her to answer—like he genuinely cared if a complete stranger who had given him absolutely no reason to care about her was okay.

So, she told him what he undoubtedly wanted to hear—that she was fine.

(It was a lie, though. The divorce papers were finally signed, but her dad still pretended like he'd been fighting for her when he'd really been fighting to drain her mom's bank account).

But Peter only hesitated for a second before accepting her answer with a chipper "okay, good." He told her it was nice to meet her before heading to his seat on the other side of the room, where he dutifully and intently began reading a chapter in his textbook until class started, foot jogging under the desk.

Michelle then spent the next few minutes trying to figure him out.

Normal people didn't do that, and she couldn't resist internally cringing at the thought that this entire encounter was beginning to feel suspiciously like one of those cheesy, unrealistic high school movies.

But…she had seen Peter do things like this before. It wasn't like he was singling her out as a special victim of his concern or weirdness or whatever. In fact, as far as she could tell from her past, glancing observations, he was just unusually polite to students and teachers alike. She remembered noticing earlier that week that he was also always the first to volunteer a pencil or piece of paper for anyone who needed one in class, even if they were across the room or were known to be chronically bereft of pencils and paper. That definitely had to be some kind of violation of her third rule. It was much easier to take advantage of people who were naturally predisposed to openness and kindness than those who weren't.

He didn't appear to be simply surviving high school, like Michelle and so many other students were. The energy and unadulterated excitement she'd seen him display when she'd initially pegged him as a hardcore geek the first week of classes betrayed an optimism that apparently extended beyond his academic career. And even though he seemed too distracted and fidgety and awkward in his own skin to be very observant or socially adept, that expression she had seen in his eyes earlier just seemed so…

Hopeful.

And genuine.

It was that thought that spurred Michelle to begin entertaining a morbid curiosity about how Peter might change over the course of high school. He was just a freshman boy after all, and time and experience and injustice inevitably dimmed the kind of enthusiasm and light she was getting glimpses of in him right now. That's just how the world worked—that's how "growing up" worked.

Eventually, at some point or another, it seemed to Michelle that many people simply stopped trying so hard to do good in a broken world because they realized that hope and kindness and will were good and noble in theory, but when it came to practice, they were rarely ever enough to create lasting change. More often, they just got the person trying to do good—or those around that person—hurt.

And she should know, too, considering all the research she'd done on all the ways the world was broken and all the ways people tried to convince themselves otherwise so they didn't have to do anything about it. That's why telling the truth like it was—bluntly, unapologetically, evenly—never failed to make people close their eyes, stop talking, and turn away.

It wasn't easy to overlook the testimony of one's own experience, and everyone was born with the instinctive desire to avoid things that caused pain.

So, she wondered, how long would it take before Peter realized what she'd realized in the past two years—that even the best intentions mean amount to little when the people you try to help or care for don't want to be helped or cared for?

But of course she couldn't actually ask that. Instead, she leaned back in her seat, pulled out a novel, and resolved to watch him just a little closer over the course of the next few weeks. He might prove to be a more interesting case study of how high school affected America's youth than she'd originally thought.

It wasn't because of anything shallow and hormonal, like a crush, of course. And it wasn't weird or obsessive or stalkerish either—she simply enjoyed and maybe even excelled at observation.

It was just what she did.

Friday

March 21st, 2025

12:17 P.M.

Michelle and Ned swapped notes at lunch.

She didn't tell him all the details about the memory she'd had—now was not the best time to explain just how confused and hurt and angsty she was freshman year, much less why—but she told him the gist of it and how it was triggered in the first place.

"It proves he was lying about when and how he met us, at least," Ned shrugged when she finished.

"Yep."

"It's kinda lit that Spiderman is our age too, even if it sucks he erased our memories and then lied to us about it. I wonder how he got his powers—do you think we could get some too? I mean, I have magic. But imagine a magic spider…"

Michelle snorted. She didn't have much headspace to say anything, though, because she was still trying to remember even one more detail about that first meeting with Peter. She'd recalled a handful of small things about past events at school over the course of the day—they materialized in her head suddenly, randomly—but none of them were nearly as helpful or significant as what she remembered last night. Most of them were things she had observed Peter do whenever they happened to have class together—they were small acts of kindness and awkward attempts at joining in conversations no one had invited him into or, sometimes, simply specific moments Michelle had found her curiosity deepening over why he was the way he was.

(Most of those little things she recalled also seemed to deepen her sense of knowing and familiarity when it came to Peter's personality freshman year but also left her with a thin, sour dread in her stomach—maybe because the Peter she knew of now seemed so different from the one coming to life in her memories. Or maybe because she knew she wasn't going to like where her memories led her from here).

She'd already told Ned about some of them, though, so now she rubbed at her temple and eyed him from across the table.

"What about you?"

Her friend looked mildly embarrassed.

"I fell asleep halfway through watching a Youtube on the Dark Web (no relation to Spiderman, obviously, but my algorithm didn't know that for some reason), so…nothing, really. Sorry," he paused and creased his eyebrows, "Oh, except the fact that I think Peter is a fellow Stars Wars fan. Like, I don't have a specific memory for that, but I just kept thinking that last night and it just feels right."

Michelle narrowed her eyes at him but filed the information away anyway—at this point, that one random fact might end up making sense of everything.

"Okaaay."

In all honesty, she trusted Ned on this point, especially since it had been his impulsive magic experimentation that broke this stupid spell to begin with. She couldn't blame him for falling asleep either—she felt like the soles of her feet and the tips of her fingers were filled with lead herself, even though there was a buzz of anxiety under her skin that wouldn't quite go away no matter how much she tried to relax.

A lot had happened over the past 24 hours, it didn't look like that was going to change anytime soon, and she was beginning to realize she needed more caffeine than the public school system could responsibly supply her with.

She glanced at the clock and then began jogging her leg under the table, a nervous habit she only allowed herself to display once in a while…as a luxury of sorts.

"I'm going to try walking around Queens to trigger more memories when school lets out," Michelle said after a moment. Ned gave her a thumbs-up as he lowered his head to the table and sighed loudly.

"Ugh. Sounds good, but I've got a coding project due in first period tomorrow, so I have to finish that. But as soon as I'm done, I'll try walking too. We'll probably cover more ground going separate ways anyway."

Michelle nodded. She'd had the idea to take a tour of Queens not long after arriving at school that morning because the idea of spending several more hours gleaning the Internet for just the right random fact about Spiderman to spark a Peter Parker memory sounded like the worst—and most frustratingly time-consuming—thing she could possibly do given her uncharacteristic bout of restlessness today. But Spiderman was intimately tied to Queens, perhaps on a deeper level than she'd believed before last night's news review, so what better way to try to remember the man behind the mask than to do ground-level research on the city he spent so much time protecting?

Part of her was even hoping she might randomly run into Peter or Spiderman himself while she was at it.

Ned interrupted her thoughts then by lifting his head, eyes bright.

"Hey, and isn't the weather finally supposed to be kind of Spring-like today? A walk might actually be fun since we feel good now, and I'm pretty sure I haven't done a walk for fun since I was two and lived in Ohio or something."

Michelle offered him an ambiguous smirk in response—he was correct in that winter seemed to finally be thawing out a little bit—but the arrival of Spring also meant the arrival of thunderstorms, which in turn meant sticky streets and grimy puddles and walks that smelled like wet dog.

She didn't really have the energy or willpower at the moment to tell him that the thunderstorm forecasted for tonight probably wouldn't make their walk very pleasant at all.

3:26 P.M.

The next truly significant memory of Peter Parker returned to Michelle at the intersection of three distinct but somehow interconnected thought-trails: her high school experience, Spiderman's enemies, and whatever the heck The Daily Bugle thought it was accomplishing by vomiting unsubstantiated hate and inflammatory anti-Spiderman propaganda all over the screens of New York City.

She stuffed a cannister of pepper spray in the pocket of her hoodie and began an aimless walk down the most crowded street outside her apartment, thinking about where the numerous small memories she'd recalled throughout the day fit into her personal timeline—especially given that she could now use meeting Peter as a kind of baseline.

She remembered the first time she heard about Spiderman, of course—how she was intrigued by what he seemed to represent but not terribly impressed given some of the things she'd heard and read about other superheroes over the years. She remembered joining the Decathlon team, too, just like she remembered the exact moment she realized she no longer wholly dreaded coming to school because in many ways it felt less empty and stagnant than at the apartment with her mom.

She also remembered how it had felt to help the Decathlon team win their trophy her sophomore year by correctly answering the last question in the tournament—and she remembered the black helplessness and fear that had engulfed her when she realized later that they were stuck in the Washington Monument.

(She also remembered how she'd realized afterwards that in her panic she'd called them 'friends' when Spiderman asked what was going on).

The second set of thoughts she considered as she breathed in the cool, humid air of March had to do with her understanding of the kinds of things Spiderman—Peter Parker—fought out on the streets. Based on prior knowledge and her more recent research, she knew the enemies and crimes he fought had become steadily more dangerous and widespread over the course of his relatively short career. It started out with the smallest of everyday crimes—carjacking and convenience store robberies and lost cats—and evolved into taking down Liz Toomes' dad's alien tech laundering operation; going after gang activity and higher-profile crimes like bank heists and drug deals; working with the Avengers; defeating massive elemental illusions in Europe; and finally into fighting a bunch of superpowered criminals from different universes.

(The details were still a bit fuzzy on that last bit in particular, but Michelle had hope she would figure it out soon enough).

And those were just the things that jumped to mind first—in between all that, Spiderman had also been dealing with the likes of John J. Jameson; a steadily growing minority of people who vocally insisted he was a murderer and danger to the world at large; and, apparently, also all the more routine stresses of high school.

And yet neither Peter Parker nor Spiderman seemed to care about the world's mixed opinion of him or even the growing danger of the crimes and people he fought against enough to actually clear the air or do anything other than…be the friendly neighborhood Spiderman, for lack of a better and more original description.

He never stopped fighting to give people hope, to make them feel safe because they were safe even when it would be so much easier to do so—that was her point.

Even now, Michelle thought as she ventured farther out under a sky fast smudging with bruised clouds, whatever Peter was going through—because he was obviously going through something—wasn't stopping him from being a hero. In fact, his base of operations and efforts to stop more deeply-rooted crime were only expanding, and more of New York City than ever before could reasonably expect to see him swinging through the streets at any given moment.

That was…admirable, Michelle thought. Inspiring, even.

And she had just frowned—trying to figure out exactly why her stomach flipped at what should have been an uplifting realization—when another memory of Peter Parker slipped quietly into place in her head.

"Dude, what did you say to him?"

It was lunchtime, and—as per her usual since a few weeks before homecoming last Friday—Michelle was sitting at the opposite end of the otherwise empty lunch table Ned Leeds and Peter Parker had claimed. She had a copy of Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis in hand and had been genuinely engrossed in its prose until she heard Ned's hushed—but excited—voice. She surreptitiously peered over the top of her book at them.

Peter was just sitting down at the table, bearing an impressively loaded tray of cafeteria food. He shrugged at his friend's question and slid into his seat, wearing that dorky, half-uncertain, half-apologetic look he had on about ninety percent of the times she noticed his facial expression.

"I just told him that I kind of know what he's going through and, uh, if he ever needs anything to just let me know."

Michelle frowned and looked back down at her book, trying to think of who the pair might be discussing. She knew eavesdropping was technically impolite, but at this point there was no way she could just not listen. Plus, ever since the Decathlon tournament and that incident at the Washington Monument, she was beginning to suspect Peter was hiding more than just an endless supply of optimism—and that there was the barest hint it might be connected to Spiderman somehow. Naturally, she wanted to investigate that some more.

"Flash is always such a jerk to you, though," Ned continued somewhat incredulously, just as Michelle refocused her attention on what was going on.

Ah, Michelle thought. They were talking about Flash Thompson, then—the rich, stereotypical, insecure bully kid. She heard his father had recently been in a serious car accident, and he had left school early the day it happened. Though he was back at school the day afterwards, his dad was apparently in the ICU at one of the best hospitals in the area—according to Betty Brant, that is.

(She hoped his dad ended up being okay).

Michelle glanced back up at Peter to find him staring at the tabletop, taking a long, slow drink of his water.

"Yeah, I know," he began when he was finished, and Michelle had to listen very carefully to catch his voice over the roar of the crowded cafeteria. "But…Uncle Ben was in the hospital for a few days before, you know. That. So, I get it. The waiting sucks."

Michelle looked quickly back at her book when Peter fidgeted and glanced around the cafeteria following his statement, her heart pounding though she wasn't entirely sure why. She honestly didn't know anything about Peter's family or parental situation because that seemed way too invasive even for her. For some reason, however, she had always been under the assumption that his home life was decent, if not a little better than decent given his general attitude at school. Maybe she was wrong—she certainly didn't know anything about an Uncle Ben.

But the sadness in Peter's voice was unmistakable, even if it seemed so foreign and uncomfortable coming from him.

He'd lost someone he loved.

Maybe she shouldn't have listened in on this conversation anyway, Michelle thought, trying halfheartedly to resume reading her book. But her mind was racing now, and she knew she wouldn't concentrate on the words because what Peter had presumably been trying to do was so unorthodox and intriguing and...sweet.

(In her entirely objective assessment of things, of course).

"Well, mad respect to you, man," Ned said quietly before his voice took on a little more color and an apologetic slant. "But, I mean…you know he's probably not going to change how he treats you or anything? He totally gave you a Look as soon as you turned your back on him."

Michelle stared harder at the page in front of her, willing herself to stop listening, but she heard Peter blow out a breath anyway.

"Yeah, well. I didn't even want to go over there at first just because I figured that would be the case, but…I just don't think anyone should have to—to go through something like that alone, you know? I just wanted him to know I get what he's going through in case, uh, in case he doesn't have anyone else to tell him that."

Despite her better judgment, Michelle held her breath and dared to lower her book just enough to peek at Leeds and Parker again. As such, she saw the moment Ned's downcast expression took on more confidence as he broke the few melancholy seconds of silence that had fallen between him and Peter.

"Okay. Cool. And I know I didn't know your Uncle Ben that long or anything, but—just for the record—I think he'd totally be proud of you for talking to Flash like that."

Peter, who seemed vaguely relieved at Ned's acceptance of his answer—probably because he didn't have to try to explain his motivations anymore, if Michelle were to hazard a guess—smiled softly, almost shyly.

"Thanks, Ned. You're the best."

Ned leaned forward and bumped fists with Peter over their trays.

"No problem, dude. And not to change the subject or anything, but we should totally update our bro handshake. It's so last year."

"Dude, yesss," Peter grinned as he stuffed a steaming forkload of green beans into his mouth. "I was thinking that yesterday! We need to add one of those chest-bump things…or do you think that's too unoriginal? Maybe we should go for something more classy—"

Michelle chose that moment to tune out of the conversation—it was easy to do now that it had swung so far into dork territory—and she swallowed the lingering bit of guilt over listening to it in the first place. She then turned her full attention not to the book in her hands but to some new insight into the heart of Peter Parker—to some key part of him that had only made her increasingly more uncomfortable to consider since their first meeting.

Despite her earlier assumption—which, in retrospect, seemed arrogant and unfair in a way that made her chest tighten—Peter had obviously seen more of the pain of the world than she'd thought. He'd lost at least his uncle, whom she could tell he had been close to, though she didn't know how long ago the loss had occurred.

But he didn't try to hide that pain at all, really, even from Ned—and she had a hard time believing that was just because he was so expressive and didn't know how to do so.

No, she believed he chose to use the experience and insight he gained in spite of his suffering for good.

She believed he used it to try to help others in any way he could and even if he went into the conversation knowing that the person he was trying to help might not respond very favorably to his efforts. He knew there was risk involved, but he went out of his way to follow through on his convictions regardless—all because he wanted to make sure no one-not even Flash-felt alone. In fact, what he'd just said actually put a lot of his past actions into a more sensible context.

Peter Parker was determined to do good even when it didn't seem worth it to her—or maybe even to himself.

And Michelle? Now, she was thinking about the people on the decathlon team she'd unwittingly called friends recently. She was thinking about everything she'd been through and was going through and everything she'd been learning. She was thinking about what it might be like to relax her rules just a little bit, to stop letting the past haunt her, to consider the possibility that maybe friends weren't quite as overrated as she'd come to believe.

She was thinking that—if Peter and his seemingly inexhaustible and inexplicable enthusiasm were any indication—maybe she could start using her knowledge and pain for something more than mere survival, like Peter was.

Maybe it really wasn't such a bad idea to have at least a little hope in the world and the people around her.

(Maybe she didn't have to choose to be alone for things to be okay).

A/N: ~+~+~+~ We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. ~+~+~+~ Romans 5:3-8

Note to Self: don't try to splice + condense 2 complex character arcs spanning 3 different movies and various headcanons into a single chapter - and especially not when your muses INSIST upon serving readers a 5-cheese pasta sauce containing at least 3 diced flashbacks, a heaping tablespoon of thick, angsty introspection, and a cup of mildly contrived thematic parallelism.

In other words, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the churros! Next up: a smidge of Peter's POV + the rest of Michelle's thematically pertinent flashbacks. Take care out there, y'all. :)